Eddy Kamuanga Ilunga
Born in 1991, Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo. Lives and works in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo
Eddy Kamuanga Ilunga graduated from the Institute of Fine Art, Kinshasa in 2009.Kamuanga draws from the structural complexity of his hometown and revisits the traditional culture of the Mangbetu people (The Mangbetu are a Sudanic ethnic group living in North/North-eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, a Bantu majority country) Referencing different forms of advertising and photography as well as traditional aesthetics, his paintings are an amalgam of complementary pop cultural forms, including music, fashion and dance. They offer an intelligent approach to popular culture by exposing the anxieties and joys of his contemporaries.
[click here to view images of Mangbetu women]
The artist incorporates the Mandombe writing script (view here) in his art work which is a Congolese and Angolan writing script created by Congolese ethnic MuKongo, Wabeladio Payi in Bas-Congo (Kongo-Central)