Kiripi Katembo

Congolese Kiripi Katembo (b.1979, Goma) began his artistic career as a painter, but in his late twenties his interest shifted towards photography and video art. Nonetheless his background as a painter is unmistakable in his video work and photographic oeuvre. Katembo paints with a camera, writes a s [...]
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Congolese Kiripi Katembo (b.1979, Goma) began his artistic career as a painter, but in his late twenties his interest shifted towards photography and video art. Nonetheless his background as a painter is unmistakable in his video work and photographic oeuvre. Katembo paints with a camera, writes a story in pictures. With the poetic touch and the attentive gaze of an impressionist, he manages to bring the rapidly mutating urban landscape to a halt. In one single shutter time he captures the reality and gives it a dreamy, often surreal, expression. By shifting focus Katembo makes the unattractive attractive, renders the transient timeless and unveils that what should have been kept hidden. His atypical compositions capture our gaze and dare us to look differently. The intriguing set of photos Un regard...(2009) - both literally and figuratively a reflection on the reality in his hometown Kinshasa - was presented at Afrikaribu (the first biennial of African photography in Kinshasa, 2010), the Biennale Picha in the Democratic Republic of Congo (2010) and at the Rencontres de Bamako (2011).Katembo's other photo series (including Mutations) and video creations are highly valued both in his home country and internationally and have been exhibited with great success in Paris, Avignon, Berlin, New York, Tunis, Toronto and Stockholm.