Art Work

Jean Depara (1928-1997) is a congolese photographer of nights, exteriors and places en vogue of Kinshasa (ex-Leopoldville) between 1955-1965. In the years of independence, Jean Depara shares his life by night in the streets and bars, and by day in athletic clubs and swimming pool of sports complexs in the capital.

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Images from Jean Depara – Photo | Revue Noire

Chéri Samba is a contemporary artist and painter born in 1956 in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Calling himself a "self an observer of the world", his brightly colored work generally focuses on scenes of daily life accompanied by text that addresses political, economic and cultural issues in DRC and abroad.

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Images from Chéri Samba | 303 Artworks | MutualArt

Bodys Isek Kingelez (1948-2015) is a congolosese artist who proposed what he called “Architectural Modelism” of cities. With his original maquettes, he depected (future) imaginaries of the African metropolis.

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Images from Bodys Isek Kingelez: City Dreams | MoMA EXHIBITION - YouTube

Born Abangwa Babotchwe in 1968, Béret is a congolese painter. This self-taught man is know for putting in colors forests of the Congo Basin.

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Images from Beret – Galerie Art Brazza (galerie-art-brazza.com)

Congolese director, photographer and producer Kiripi Katembo Siku (1979-2015) is particularly known for his photographs of Kinshasa. He used to document daily life through the puddles of the capital, which earned him the nickname "master of reflection".

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Images from Beauté Congo - Entretien avec Kiripi Katembo - 2015 - YouTube

Joana Choumali, born in 1974, is visual artist based in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire. She works mainly on conceptual photography that she mixes with collage, embroidery, quilting and photomontage. Joana Choumali evokes themes of migration and Africans' dreams. By superimposing large silhouettes of men, women, and children in watered-down landscapes, the artist creates poetry and places her protagonists in a kind of imaginary "elsewhere" within the "here."

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Images from Joana CHOUMALI - Accueil

Kouamè Landry N’Zoue was born in Ivory Coast in 1993. He is an accrylic painter mainly illustrating both humans in urban spaces and urban spaces in humans.

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Images from N'zoue Kouamé Landry : Artiste Peintre contemporain ivoirien - SINGULART

Mounou Desiré Koffi is a young Ivorian artist born in 1994. He uses recycled and informal materials to create. Inspired by pop art, he uses keyboards and screens of old phones that draw human silhouettes inserted into realistic and colorful urban settings.

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Images from Mounou Désiré Koffi | iLAB (ilab-design.africa)

Born in 1979, Pascal Konan depicts the daily life of the inhabitants of Abidjan, seeking to convey the emotion of the affluence and exuberance of African cities. His work seeks to highlight the paradoxes between a happy childhood spent in one of the suburbs of Abidjan and the precariousness of an Africa struggling with urbanity.

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Images from Pascal Konan : Artiste Peintre contemporain ivoirien - SINGULART

Obou Gbais, born in 1992 in Guiglo, in the west of Ivory Coast, is a contemporary Ivorian artist. After his artistic diploma he joined the University of Fine Arts in Abidjan in 2014, which he completed with his Master's degree in 2019.
 

The themes he deals with in his work are the slums and the condition of the human beings, which are the results of the politico-military crisis in 2002. Another theme that he deals with in his works is the representation of women and their realities of life.

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Images from Peintre Obou

Born in Caracas, Venezuela in 1987, Alejandra Loreto currently lives and works in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire. Her artistic work deals with our relation to the physical and built environment. Her great source of inspiration has been travelling, living abroad and different cultures.

Through architecture and photography, she has found different ways of understanding how the urban and geographical environment influence our "identity" and the meaning of “home”.

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Images & text from Alejandra Loreto