Roger Botembe 'Masks and Fetishes' monumental abstract painting, oil on canvas 1992

Monumental Painting No. 7 (oil on canvas 200 x 200 cm), Brussels in 1992.
Masks and Fetishes - Abstract

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nx2RG1c0-DA

Biography:

Born on March 4, 1959, in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, Roger Botembe Mimbayi is a painter who graduated from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of Belgium in 1986 and is highly renowned in both Congo and Belgium. He began his career by establishing his own studio and a Congolese school of contemporary African art. His research in abstract painting led him to explore symbols, signs, masks, and traditional sculptures. He exhibits extensively in his country, as well as abroad, particularly in South Africa, Belgium, Monaco, and Poland. The quality of his work earned him several awards in 1986, including the City of Brussels Prize for Excellence, the Belgian Government's Gold Medal, the City of Brussels' "Charles Buls Prize," the Paraguayan Embassy Prize, and the Louvain-la-Neuve Museum of Contemporary Art Prize (Belgium).
In 1981-1982 he worked in Samir Zarour's workshop in Abidjan, Ivory Coast at the National Institute of Arts of Abidjan and obtained the 2nd degree diploma in monumental painting from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of Brussels.
Since 1990, he has held the position of head of works at the Academy of Fine Arts in his country; and from 2006, that of director of International Cooperation and promotion at the Institute of National Museums.
In 1992, he founded the Botembe Workshops, a Congolese school of contemporary African art. Associate Professor and Head of the Visual Arts Department at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kinshasa and Director of International Cooperation and Promotion at the Institute of National Museums of Congo since 2006, he is the founder in 1999 of trans-symbolism, a current of the Renaissance of contemporary African art.
Died of Covid on 31/12/2019.