Image: David Krut Projects, New York
David Krut invited artists Doudou Mbemba and Sisqo Ndombe, visiting the 19th FNB Joburg Art Fair from Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, to create new works at David Krut Workshop in Johannesburg.
Working with printer Sbongiseni Khulu, the artists produced series of mixed-media monotype paintings after a week of experimentation with oil-based and watercolour monotype and handwork. Neither Mbemba nor Ndombe had experience in printmaking before the workshop. The collaboration relied on visual observation and direct physicality because the participants spoke no English.
Each artist worked for five days, creating six resolved works that referenced their familiar imagery and combined oil-based and watercolour monotype with direct handwork.
The workshop is located at Arts On Main in Johannesburg’s downtown Maboneng art precinct and operates with a team of four very experienced master collaborators, who are artists themselves. Born in Boma in Kongo Central province in 1978, Doudou Mbemba is based in Kinshasa and studied painting at the Institut des Beaux-Arts in Kinshasa before continuing at the Académie des Beaux-Arts de Kinshasa.
Mbemba’s practice engages with social disorder, conflict and tensions created by individualism, using vibrant colour and recurring imagery of traffic jams to reflect on a society in which collective interests can be displaced by individual concerns. His artistic philosophy is centred on the possibility of a more coordinated and participatory form of coexistence.
