Born in 1956, Chéri Samba lives and works in Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. After leaving school in 1972, he earned his living painting advertising billboards, and at the same time created comic strips for his publication Bilenge Info. In 1975, he began to put his comic strips onto canvas, thus inaugurating African painting with word bubbles.
His work illustrates social life: customs, sexuality, AIDS, social inequalities, corruption. Along with the painter Moke, he is one of the principal founders of the movement in painting known as "Popular Zairean." His acrylic paintings, imbued with political awareness, are always representational, realistic, and colorful. "My painting focuses on people's lives. I'm not interested in myths or beliefs. I appeal to people's consciences. Artists must make people think."
From the 1980s on, he himself became the main subject of his paintings, "so that people would not only know my name, but also my face." Distributed on behalf of the Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain. 150 color photographs.