Steve Bandoma appropriates imagery from contemporary advertising and magazines in order to ‘breathe new life into them’. Creating imagined portraits of the inhabitants of Kinshasa, his images are contemporary embodiments of traditional African gods and fetish objects. Bandoma combines acrylic, watercolour, felt-tip pen, ink, and collage, often on handmade paper to give these works a tangible energy. Splashes of paint and bursts of colour add violence and urgency to his portraits.
A graduate from the Academy of Fine Arts in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Steve Bandoma’s work has been included in group exhibitions such as Megalopolis, GRASSI Museum, Leipzig (2018); Evora Africa, Portugal (2018); Beauty Congo, Cartier Foundation, Paris (2015) and the travelling exhibition Kongo Across the Water (2014-2015). Bandoma’s work will be included in the upcoming La Biennale de Lubumbashi, Kinshasa (2019). Bandoma has had several solo exhibitions in the DRC, South Africa, Europe and the USA.