Notes

Accompanied by a Pavilion 54 certificate of authenticity.

Gloire À Dieu Babanzanga is a visual artist from Kinshasa. He was born in 1988 in Bas-Congo, a province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He studied at l’Académie des Beaux-Arts in Kinshasa and obtained a postgraduate degree in Painting in 2011. This was followed in 2012 by a traineeship in printing technology and computer science at the Maria Vianney Industrial School of Madurai in India. Babanzanga’s paintings focus on the human face as a window to an individual’s innermost beauty. Using vibrant colours and superimposed patterns reminiscent of the traditional facial scarification of many Congolese tribes, Babanzanga’s paintings impart messages as a preacher would present sermons from the pulpit. He says of his work, “My art is a mirror that sends us back a reflection. It gives us the opportunity to confront our qualities, our faults, and our mistakes. It is a means of rectifying our trajectories and remembering Reason”. Babanzanga has exhibited extensively in Kinshasa and also in Rwanda.

Biography courtesy of Pavilion 54.