PIASA presents, in partnership with ASPIRE auction house, a sale of African Contemporary Art on 14 February 2020 in Cape Town, South Africa.
Like many popular artists, Joseph Bertiers began his career painting signs and billboards for shops and bars around Nairobi.
After training at the YMCA Crafts Training Center in Nairobi, he became a full-time artist. His work is a satire on Kenyan society. He draws inspiration from TV shows, CNN topics, current affairs magazines such as News-Week and the local press.
Everyday scenes, politics, surreal buildings and busy markets are the world of his paintings. Bertiers' canvases are saturated and filled with public figures and ordinary people represented in grotesque clothes and attitudes that sometimes draw on the monstrous. One has to observe his paintings for several hours to grasp all the details, the juxtapositions of events and the jokes that form part of daily Kenyan life.
Tackling socio-political issues in a humorous and satirical manner, his work has received much public and critical attention in Kenya and around the world.
Christophe Person Head of Contemporary African Art, PIASA
Joseph Bertiers (born in 1963 in Kenya)
Oil on canvas
76 x 105 cm
Estimation : 3780 / 5670 €
