![]() ![]() Instead, he wanted his eldest son to stay home in the village and take care of the family farm. ![]() Samba’s father, however, was not supportive of his son’s talent for art. Looking at the painting, Samba realized he needed to get out of his small village and pursue his artistic talent seriously. One of Samba’s paintings was taken on tour with the school’s soccer team and received a huge positive reaction. Worried that he might not be able to make enough money off his drawings, Samba turned to painting by the time that he got to secondary school in hopes that it would lead him to a real career. In primary school, Samba was known as the best artist, and he even sold his drawings to friends. Samba always knew he wanted to be an artist, even from when he was a young child drawing pictures in the sand in Kinto M’Vuila. Samba’s personal life plays an important role as well in the understanding of his works because many of his later works, from the late 1980s onwards, take this topic as their main theme or focal point. Why don’t the Americans help African governments to put a water tap in every home? It might be expensive, but I wonder, how much are they spending on missions to find out if there is water on Mars?” With this painting, Samba illustrates what he finds to be the absurdity of forgoing the needs of our own species in order to look for life (or evidence of life in the form of water) on other planets.Ĭhéri Samba, Probléme d’Eau, 2004. Speaking about the difficulty accessing clean drinking water in Africa, Samba has said: “It’s a ridiculous problem. The painting Probléme d’Eau (Water Problem), 2004 takes the international water crisis as its main theme, showing his intention to use his art to serve a purpose, or at the very least, make a political statement. Samba has shown an interest in dilemmas that go beyond the borders of his home country and that affect us globally as well. ![]() Un Vie non Ratée (A Successful Life), 1995). Little Kadogo, I am for Peace, That is Why I Like Weapons, 2004), as well as the prosperity of the upper-class (ex. Topics have included the involvement of youth in violence and corruption (ex. Through his artwork, Samba has set out to portray the everyday realities of Congolese life from the late 20th century up until the present day. Eventually, the DRC’s economy crashed and became entangled in poverty, but the time in which Samba began to paint for a local audience (the 1970s) was one characterized by optimism and great political change. In the 1960s, the DRC was liberated from its Belgian colonial rule - known to be among the most violent and oppressive - and entered into a new era with “music, bars and cars” as it became an independent state. Through this blog entry, I aim to introduce the reader to Samba and his unique paintings, providing context that will help hopefully encourage him or her to explore further.īorn in Kinto M’Vuila, a small village in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Samba came of age in a pivotal moment for his country. He exhibited at the Venice Biennale in 2007, and is represented in the permanent collections of prestigious institutions like MoMA and the Centre Pompidou. His paintings have also been featured - and highly publicized - in every single one of the Sotheby’s Modern & Contemporary African art sales since they began in 2017. Samba’s work has been included in basically every turning-point exhibition that is considered part of the genre’s history. His goal, as expressed, is to make people think critically about the world around them, and his topics range from the impact of colonialism to what it means to be a successful artist. Known for his playful, brightly-colored, graphic paintings with a political message, Chéri Samba is one of the most visible Contemporary African artists on the market today.
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