Chéri Samba : The Artist Who Makes People Think

Chéri Samba is one of the most well-known contemporary artists in Africa. His works are well-accepted internationally for being political satires and for reflecting events through the interpretation of abstract paintings and texts in the paintings.
Chéri Samba was born in the Republic of the Congo (known as Zaire at that time) in 1956. When he was 16, he left his village to find work as a sign painter in Kinshasa, the country’s capital. In 1975, he opened his own studio and, at the same time, worked as an illustrator for an entertainment magazine, Bilenge Info. During this time, he developed his painting style by combining painting and texts together. His paintings reflect his attitudes towards politics, social dynamics, economics, and ways of life in the capital where he lives, traditions, sexual orientations, AIDS and other diseases, social inequality, wide-spread corruption, and Zairean or Congolese culture.
When it comes to arts, he said that “Artists must make people think.”
His works became internationally known in the mid-1980s. They are on display in many countries such as France, the US, Italy, Germany, Belgium, with an aim to make people realise the current situation and appreciate the aesthetics of diversity in Congolese societies.

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