ÉLISEZ LA MEILLEURE OEUVRE PICTURALE DU MONDE (JUIN 2007)

Pays/Land/Country:CONGO RD (Afrique du Sud)

Date de naissance:

Site web:

Formation: Academie des beaux-arts de Kinshasa

Peinture de Maurice Mbikayi du R D Congo

Biographie de Mbikayi

Educational Qualifications

Academie des Beaux Arts :   1994 :           Matric (Fine Art)
Kinshasha (DRC).
2000 :       Diploma in Fine Art (Kinshasa / DRC).

Group Exhibitions
-    May      2007:      National Gallery, IZIKO, ( Slave Lodge), Cape Town,  Human Rights Day.
-   April      2007:       Scalabrini Center, Cape Town (‘Voyage Ensemble II’ - XCape).
-    September      2006:      Scalabrini Center, Cape Town ('Voyage ensemble I').
-    August      2006:       Association for Visual Art (AVA Gallery) – portrait exhibition.
-    April      2006:       Alliance Francaise, Cape Town ( response to ‘Picasso in Africa’ at IZIKO).
-   March      2006:      The Framery Art Gallery, Cape Town .
-   2001:      Germany Embassy, Kinshasa.
-   2001:      Alliance Francaise, Kinshasa – ‘Villages Artistiques’.
-  1998:      Memling Hotel, Kinshasha .
-  1994:      ANEZA (Business Association), Kinshasha.

Solo Exhibitions
-  June       2007      The Framery Art Gallery, Cape Town

About the artist

Maurice Hermes .L. Mbikayi was born in 1974 in Kinshasa, DRC. Against his family’s wishes, he attended the Academie des Beaux Arts in Kinshasa, where he enrolled himself in 1991. He completed his Matric in Fine Art (Sculpture) in 1994. Following a period at polytechnic in Bas-Congo, he returned to the Academie des Beaux Arts in Kinshasa in 1997, graduating with a Diploma in Graphic Design and Advertising in 2000. During this time he worked also in ceramics and continued with painting. In 2002 Maurice joined the “Libristes”, a group of young Congolese artists developing the use of new media in their work.

Maurice arrived in Cape Town in mid-2004, having been forced to flee the DRC on account of war and political crisis. To survive, he spent the next two years working on building sites, doing scaffolding, cleaning and painting buildings. By mid-2006 he took the difficult decision to devote himself full-time to his work as a artist. He has since been working on painting and sculpture.

Maurice has exhibited in group showings at a number of galleries in Cape Town, including Cape Gallery, Framery Art Gallery, Alliance Francaise, AVA Gallery, Scalabrini Centre, Veo Gallery and the Iziko Slave Lodge. He has been actively involved in art and visual art organisations in South Africa, including VANSA   (Visual Art Networks of South Africa ), CitySkin group and Voyage Ensemble.

CitySkin is a collective comprising a core group of 11 South African and foreign artists. With a view to challenging the critical role of the artist in contemporary South African society, CitySkin incorporates artists into an expanding network of cultural producers. The collective seeks to contribute to the creative economy of the city and to contribute to the transformation of public culture, providing content-rich encounters of artists, youth and communities with the environment and with each other. Ultimately, it is a social capital program linking youth development, artist empowerment, urban design and public service.

Voyage Ensemble is an ongoing multi-media project developing networks between local and migrating African artists. The Project is guided by its object to celebrate a journeying together of both visual art and people defined by a broad understanding of a shared African visual imagery rather than by borders and differences.

 

Artist’s work
Maurice is currently exploring various aspects of working with mixed media. He has been working with acrylic, oil paint, foam, silicon, fibre, charcoal and ink. His artworks are directed towards representation of everyday life. He is interested in the expressions of human faces, seeking to convey attitudes and mood between individuals. He works sometimes in series, as a way of narrating social interaction.

Abstract work : Maurice’s abstract paintings are a reflection of his emotional response to his immediate environment. He explores strong colours and bold lines, working on a rich background.

 

Commissions:
Mural painting: Brooklyn Chest Hospital, Cape Town - CitySkin group 2006-2007
(in collaboration with CHAT (Community Health and Art Trust) promoting the Art Therapy programme)

 

Further information :
www.multimediations.org
www.voyageensemble.blogspot.com
Teamage@mweb.co.za