Bouvy Enkobo
Painter | DR Congo
Bouvy Enkobo (1981), studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kinshasa, but left to pursue his career alone as part of “the new wave” generation conflict. Besides painting, he also experiments with collage, photography and video.
Portrait
Kingsley Ogwara (1975) studied his bachelors in Fine and Applied Arts at Delta State University in Abrake, Nigeria and resides and works from Luxembourg, where he is a well recognised painter and sculptor. His paintings and sculptures in clay, stone, wood or metal consist of organic concave and convex forms, mostly (semi-)abstract and are inspired by African or European images and symbols.They center about human transformation and connection, about the freedom and harmony that can be found in the masses. As such they rather express a state of mind than an extensive narrative.
Ogwara: “In our globalized world with its many issues, we each struggle individually to live our lives in a meaningful way. When we grow up, we build up our defenses, often based on fear and distrust, resulting from the inevitable hardships that life brings sometimes. However, life also brings unexpected compassion and new windows, and each hardship brings new insights, makes us reflect and grow. We all need to mature, overcome fear and distrust and open up our defenses to connect to each other, dare to be vulnerable to give and receive love. My works are about this transformation and interconnectedness”
His paintwork with knives in oil and acrylic on canvas are characterized by pointilistic abstract orchestrations of colors and rich textures, which seem to take on the form of masses of people. Ogwara typically hides his initial images behind these thick pointilistic pastiche layers, which creates a lot of depth and suggestion. In his latest Icon-series, he experiments with adding some figurative element by allowing the initial portraits to shine through.
Ogwara has participated in many group- and solo exhibitions, amongst others in Luxemburg, Netherlands, Belgium, France, Germany and Austria. He was awarded amongst others the prestigious bi-annual Prix Pierre Werner for his paintings as best artist in Luxembourg in 2016. At the Luxembourg Art Week 2019, he was nominated again with his sculptures for the Grand-Duc Adolphe award and in 2022 again for the Prix Pierre Werner, which granted him the titular membership of CAL as the first African member in its history. Most recently, he showed for 6 months at the blockbuster exhibition “Gospel” at the historical Catharijne Convent museum in Utrecht (Netherlands). His paintings are included in collections all over the world.
Bouvy Enkobo (1981), studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kinshasa, but left to pursue his career alone as part of “the new wave” generation conflict. Besides painting, he also experiments with collage, photography and video.
His early work is characterized by fragments of urban impressions, where colors and geometric shapes bring rhythm within the chaotic and sometimes difficult living conditions in African inner cities or where he just withdraws in intuitive colorful
abstracts reflecting the human state of mind.
Enkobo often shows the elusive and fugitive profiles that coexist in large cities: the time that passes and the human intelligence are thus intertwined. The expansion of the modern world and its evolution takes place without regard to individuals or their roots, and sometimes even to their detriment. These individuals are drowned in the mass, standardized; there is no longer any possibility of differentiating them. Enkobo represents those left-behind and the marginalized in society, in the form of stricken and prostrate characters.
In his latest work, Enkobo enriches his intuitive painting style with collage techniques and mixes in his own way of urban realism focused on the individual placed within a brightly colored chaos. He reflects on the subject of the territories occupied by man and questions the position of mankind and its evolution in this common space. He revises the traces of certain eras in history, in order to write a newly updated version.
Enkobo evokes the notion of space as a place of exchange and sharing. He questions heritages, which today divides, rather than unites mankind, with a view to offer possibilities of a return to fundamental values.
Enkobo has exhibited in DR Congo, Zimbabwe, South-Africa, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and the US, and won the special prize of the European Union at the Yango Biennale in Kinshasa in 2014. His work is included in the collection of the delegation of the European Union in DR Congo, Fondation Hirondelle and many private collections and recently outperformed on the online ArtNet Africa Present auction.
