Peter Sibanda – Contemporary South African Artist

“Peter Sebanda is so literal and exact that this becomes his strength and signature. Graduate of the Open Window Art Academy, his glossy, lush, detailed paintings depict woman, mostly black, in surroundings so opulent as to be positively palatial. With colour so rich, intense and glowing that it seems more Technicolor than pigment, with meticulous detail and hallucinatory finish, these works are a species of Grand Kitsch. I can compare them to no other artist except that master of kitsch, the Amarican Jeff Koons.

Yet Sibanda also refers, via Hollywood and Disneyworld, to Africa, a specifically contemporary South African. He reflects a very beautiful black middle class and its aspirations while offering a critique of its advance into luxury and decadence. ‘The Splash’ which I would never attempt to interpret in a short article such as this, is one of the most bizarre, puzzling and fascinating paintings I have seen.

Do not miss this exhibition which, I would go so far as to suggest, heralds a new era in South African art with a new generation of artists. African Renaissance, perhaps?

(Ingrid Stevens)”

Peter Sibanda was born in 1972, Mabopane, North West.

He attended Pimville Primary School in Pimville Township near Soweto and in 1983 attended Fortune Kunene Primary School and later Illinge High School in Vosloorus Township on the East Rand.

1990 he was moved to Atteridgeville, west of Pretoria where he completed his Matric at Phelindabe High School.

In 1993 he moved to Soshanguve, north of Pretoria where he now reside.

Artistic Profile

During the process of developing his art interest, a female librarian from Vosloorus took him for a visit to the Johannesburg Art Gallery in 1987, that visit stimulated his interest in the arts. Later that year he began private lessons offered freely at the Johannesburg Art Gallery under the guidance of Michelle Jersky and Stanford Cher, up until early 1990 when he moved to Pretoria.

1995 – 1997 he studied art at the Open Window, School of Visual Communication, and obtained a higher Diploma in Fine Art and a certificate in Visual Communication.

He began painting full time in 1997 after his first group exhibition.

Group Exhibitions

2007 September – Cape Town Group Exhibition

2007 ‘Saint Sebastian Exhibition’ – Association of Arts, Pretoria

2006 ‘Celebrating Rembrandt’ – Association of Arts, Pretoria

2004 ‘Pretoria’- Everard Read Gallery, Cape Town

2000 ‘Resent work’ by Peter Sibanda and ‘Living masks’ by George Rock’

1999
# ‘8 former students’
# ‘B(L)ACK by popular demand’1997
# ‘Extentions’- The Open Window Gallery, Pretoria
# ‘Little Germs’- The Open Window Gallery, PretoriaAchievements in Art Competitions

July 2007 Won ‘The Coke Side of Life’ Competition held by the (ABI) Amalgamated Beverage Industries

Finalist in the following National Art Competitions
# 1998 – Sasol New Signatures
# 2000 – Ekurhuleni Fine Art Awards
# 2001 – ABSA Atelier
# 2004 – Johannesburg Art City ProjectArt and Design

Stamp Designs In 2001 he was commissioned by the South African Post Office to design the first international letter rate postage stamp, and a commemorative envelope for the Johannesburg World Summit held in August 2002.
# 2002 designed the Aids Awareness Stamp Booklet, containing 10 self-adhesive stamps for the South African Post Office. Other parts of these stamps were on the cover, of the November – December edition, of Setempe Magazine.
# 2004 commissioned by the Philatelic Services in Silverton, to design 5 postage stamps as well as a commemorative envelope, for the Post Office, in celebration and commemoration of 10 years of a democratic South Africa.
# 2005 asked by the Philatelic Services in Silverton, to design 2 Christmas Postage Stamps as well as a commemorative envelope, for the South African Post Office. These were issued on the 3rd of October 2005. Other commissions
# 2004 commissioned to paint a portrait of Mr.F.Titi, a former CEO of ARMSCO in Erasmuskloof Art Collections
# ARMSCO
# Telkom
# Pretoria Art Museum
# Philatelic Services
# Private Collection

Chéri Samba Contemporary African Artist

Chéri Samba or Samba wa Mbimba N’zingo Nuni Masi Ndo Mbasi (born December 30, 1956 in Kinto M’Vuila) is a

Ils attendent le sauveur Jésus Christ
Ils attendent le sauveur Jésus Christ

painter from the Democratic Republic of Congo. He is one of the most famous contemporary African artists, with his works being included in the collections of the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. He has been invited to participate in the 2007 Venice Biennale. His paintings almost always include text in French and Lingala, commenting on life in Africa and the modern world. Chéri Samba lives in Kinshasa and Paris.

Chéri Samba was born in Kinto M’Vuila as the elder son of a family of ten children. His father was a blacksmith and his mother a farmer. in 1972, at the age of 16 he left the village to find work as a sign painter in the capital Kinshasa.

In 1975 he opened his own studio. At the same time he also became an illustrator for the entertainment magazine Bilenge Info. It is at this time when he developed his signature style of combining paintings with text. His work earned him some local fame. His breakthrough was the exhibition Les Magiciens de la Terre at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris in 1989, which made him known internationally.

In 2007, curator Robert Storr invited Samba to participate in the 52nd International Art Exhibition at the Venice Biennale, entitled “Think with the Senses—Feel with the Mind. Art in the Present Tense”, and described by The Huffington Post as ‘certainly “the exhibition” of this new Century’.

INDIVIDUAL EXHIBITIONS

2007-2008
Chéri Samba, Corsoveneziatto Arte Contemporanea, Milano, Italy

2005
Les débuts de Chéri Samba, Kunstverein, Braunschweig – Germany
J’aime Chéri Samba, A selection of paintings from the exhibition at the Fondation Cartier, Texas Southern University, Houston – USA

2004
J’aime Chéri Samba, Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, Paris, France

2003
Chéri Samba moto na Tervuren, Musée royal de l’Afrique centrale, Tervuren, Belgique

2002
Kinshasa Congo. Fabien Rigobert / Moke, Chéri Samba, Espace Croisé, Centre d’art contemporain, Roubaix, France

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