FEATURED ARTIST OF THE MONTH

Featured Artist Ley Mboramwe(South Africa)

ARTIST STATEMENT

“The  images I produce partially relate to what  happened  in  my  country  with  regards to  the  war: the  killings and  looting of precious minerals  from  Congo. At the same time, I endeavor to make work that is more of a universal commentary balancing it with the influence of my origin.  Where I come from, it is hot.  Therefore, through the use of warm colors, you can see that I have not forgotten the land I come from. I try to be constantly aware and conscious of the current social and political circumstances, while not forgetting the sociopolitical influences of the past.  Using what’s happening around me as stimuli, creates a sense of emotional drive and connection both personally and conceptually. If there is a canvas in front of me, I just start working. I usually start with the background and then proceed to sketch. I prefer for the process to happen naturally and intuitively. I don’t like working towards a set idea, as that limits me.”

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY

Ley Mboramwe is a Cape Town based artist, originally from Kinshasa, DRC. He completed his degree in Fine Art at the AcadĂ©mie des Beaux-Arts in Kinshasa, overcoming the loss of his parents and managing to qualify in the midst of the war. Experiences of his time in the  DRC, its suffering,  beauty, politics,  and  culture is evident in his work and  has shaped his approach to  the  themes and  styles  he uses Body, Soul and Spirit follows his first exhibition at Eclectica Contemporary in 2016 titled  (Mniata)  Lingala and  is his debut full solo exhibition in Cape Town. Ley exhibited with Eclectica at Turbine Art Fair in 2017 and has since also featured on various group shows.

The work in this exhibition throbs and pulsates through the room, vividly pushing their imagery through the space. The  viewer  is confronted with Morambwe’s vibrant  mark making  and  use of colors  that  mimic  the  heat and fraught  environment the  paintings draw on. Following  on  from  motifs  in his earlier work,  Mboramwe’s figures  continue to float in space, transfiguring body  and flesh,  spirit  and  soul;  the  abstraction  of life that  we are eternally caught up in.

With figures suspended without a horizon line to locate earth and sky, Mboramwe explores the notion of spirit and soul as boundless and removed from earthly necessities. Additionally, the figures are removed from land, earth that is entrenched with the difficulties of politics and socioeconomic struggle.

While the works situate themselves in the subliminal, the artist works primarily from the real. Mboramwe is assertive of his interaction with contemporary culture, current news and the world around him that act as stimuli for his work. The works are produced through a kind of automatic with this exhibition, Ley Mboramwe has pushed his creative process further, expanding on his use of form and expressive colors becoming more specific and intentional within his loose working process. The  works  jump off the walls with their  figures, urging the viewer  to stop and acknowledge, to  feel  and  be moved  to be mindful of body, soul and spirit.

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