(born in Kinshasa in 1981, lives and work in Cape Town)
Nobel de la guerre (from costumes series)(War nobel), 2018, titled, signed and dated Bandoma 2018, ink on paper, 140 x 110 cm, framed

Provenance:
European Private Collection

Steve Bandoma was born in 1981 in Kinshasa, where he lives and works. He studied there until 2004, when he started his career in South Africa. He is well known and appreciated for his imaginary portraits of the inhabitants of his city, contemporary embodiments of traditional African gods and fetish objects or, as in the case of the present portrait, satirical references to politics and society. Bandoma combines different techniques, acrylic, watercolour, felt-tip pen, ink, and collage, often on handmade paper, to give these works tangible energy. Splashes of paint and bursts of colour add violence and urgency to his work.
As a major figure in the Kinshasa art scene, he participated in the 2015 exhibition Beauté Congo 1926-2015 at the Cartier Foundation in Paris, and in Kongo Across the Waters at the New Orleans Museum of Art in the United States.

The city of Kinshasa is also pivotal in the work of Kura Shomali, inspiring him in his collagist approach. Evoking the chaos and complexity of this teeming metropolis, Shomali’s works appear fragmentary in form, composed of snatches of sights and sounds, embodying the life of the street. Portraits are central in his work, often deriving from images by celebrated African photographers Seydou Keita, Samuel Fosso and Malick Sidibé. The work on paper presented here is a great example of his grotesque, colourful and humorous way of depicting characters from the streets of Kinshasa.
His work has been shown in prestigious exhibitions, among others The Power of Paper at the Saatchi Gallery in London in 2013 and Beauté Congo 1926 – 2015 at the Fondation Cartier in Paris in 2015.