In this new body of work, Eddy Kamuanga continues his search to understand the present-day Democratic Republic of the Congo by exploring its past. The vibrant colours and intricate textures that characterise the artist’s style appear at odds with the melancholy permeating the unfocused gaze of the figure. A gaze lost in another place, future or maybe past. A gaze belonging to a body that bears the signs and scars of a bewildering past and an equally uncertain future. The artist creates continuity in his work through figures scarified with motifs reminiscent of electrical circuits. This highly symbolic visual thread references the situation of the DR Congo. The situation of a country whose people and outrageously rich lands have, for over a century, fallen prey to exploitation, and whose history of resistance to the various invasions has not been adequately told.
In this series, Eddy Kamuanga explores one of the specific forms the Congolese resistance took in the then Congo Free State, in the late 19th century. In 1893, the Catholic Mission of the Jesuit Fathers established the chapel-farm system. These red brick structures were intended to “provide a home” to Congolese children ostensibly abandoned or orphaned. They were trained in military discipline, as well as crafts and agriculture. In reality, these children were used as free labour and served the colonial mission for decades, thus creating generations of Congolese citizens isolated from their own families and communities. The religious mission employed the same tools as other enterprises exploiting the people and land.
From the late 19th century, the red brick chapel-farms, depicted on this canvas, became sites of resistance for groups such as that led by Mambela, a Kasongo chief in the Kasai region. By occupying these spaces of conversion and exploitation of Congolese youth, resistance fighters like Mambela took a stand against colonial occupation. But, as the colonial experience has taught us, there can be no occupation without violence. Resistance fighters did not stop at simply occupying the spaces; they also destroyed them, before moving on to the next chapel-farm, which they would, in turn, occupy and destroy. And so, their mission to redress the damage of colonialism and the religious missions advanced.
Throughout the series, and most specifically in this canvas, the artist seeks to include visual elements symbolising the persistence of traditions and skills despite the violence of colonialism and the ongoing violence that the neoliberal project inflicts on the country. For instance, the goat, has enjoyed a unique status in Congolese family life and social interactions from precolonial times to the present day. Gifted at weddings and other important events, the animal can, by virtue of its unchanging status throughout time, be considered symbolic of a certain kind of resistance, enacted by every Congolese citizen.

Born in 1991, Eddy Kamuanga lives and works in Kinshasa, Africa. In 2017, his work was included in the exhibition African-Print Fashion Now! at the Fowler Museum, UCLA, touring to Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, Memphis, TN, and Mint Museum, Charlotte, NC. His work has been exhibited internationally at institutions including Frist Art Museum, Nashville, TN; Kunsthaus, Graz, Austria; Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery, Birmingham, UK; Saatchi Gallery and the Royal Academy of Arts, London, UK. In 2022, he was part of the group exhibition Fortitude: Resistance and Resilience in African Arts – Reimagining the People’s Collection at the North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, USA. Eddy Kamuanga’s work 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; Scheryn Art Collection, Cape Town, South Africa; Vanhaerents Art Collection, Brussels, Belgium; the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, USA and the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Montreal, Canada. Eddy Kamuanga presented his first solo exhibition at Zidoun-Bossuyt Luxembourg in 2023. He will be part of the group show King and Queens of Africa: Forms and Figures of Power, from 29 January to 25 May 2025, Louvre Abu Dhabi, UAE.