Solo exhibition of Eddy Kamuanga Ilunga
0ctober Gallery, 2021
This show focused on Kamuanga’s new series in which he examines the detrimental effect of Catholic missions on the DRC from the end of the 19th century onwards. His large-scale figurative compositions offer insight into these colonial influences and into the acts of resistance that it triggered. In the paintings figures are flanked by red brick ‘sanctuaries’, shadowed by religious objects and draped in vivid colours and careful textures, remnants of the system that exploited people and lands. Yet the works act as a reminder of resistance actions that continued until the late 19th century and celebrate the persistence of traditions which survived and Kamuanga proudly represented across the paintings.
Born in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1991, Eddy Kamuanga Ilunga studied painting at the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Kinshasa. He establish M’Pongo, a group studio where a diverse set of young artists shared ideas and exhibited together to generate their own vibrant scene, which tapped into the high-energy creativity of contemporary Kinshasa. His work has been exhibited internationally and is in important private and public collections including: Private Collection Laurence Graff OBE; Zeitz Collection of Zeitz MOCAA, Cape Town, South Africa; the Hood Museum of Art, Hanover, USA; Pizzuti Collection of the Columbus Museum of Art, USA; the Norval Foundation, Cape Town, South Africa; and Scheryn Art Collection, Cape Town, South Africa.
