Eddy Kamuanga Ilunga

Born in 1991, Eddy Kamuanga Ilunga studied painting at the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Kinshasa. Finding the overly academic programme to be conceptually stifling, in 2011, he and other artists established M’Pongo, a group studio where a diverse set of young artists shared ideas and exhibited together to generate their own vibrant scene. Kamuanga Ilunga’s practice is preoccupied with the postcolonial socio-economic and political changes in the Democratic Republic of Congo, particularly the theme of cultural decline or erasure in the wake of colonial oppression and, increasingly, globalisation. His work has been exhibited internationally at institutions including Frist Art Museum, Nashville, Tennessee, USA; Kunsthaus, Graz, Austria; Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery, Birmingham, UK; Saatchi Gallery and the Royal Academy of Arts, London, UK. His work is held 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; and Scheryn Art Collection, Cape Town, South Africa.