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Samba wa Mbimba Nzingo Nuni Masi Ndo Mbasi (Cheri Samba) – a man with such a long name (try to learn) or, in short, Sheri Samba, is currently one of the most famous artists in Africa, he is also called the king of popular painting of the Congo. Originally from a remote Congolese village, one of ten children of his parents, he left school and his small homeland and moved to Kinshasa, where he still lives. I drew a lot – cartoons, posters, landscapes, comics, painted on everything that came across – on bags, as canvases were too expensive, on newspapers, even on sand. One day, he came up with the idea to add some text to his paintings, as he later called it, Samba’s signature, in order to make the viewer stop and become interested in his work. He also increasingly added his own image, as a neutral, innocent, but cheerful observer, to his paintings, all in order to distinguish himself from other artists and attract the viewer. And this played its marketing role – its popularity began to grow. And popularity not only in the capital of the Congo, but also beyond its borders. In 1989, his work was presented at the iconic African art exhibition “Magiciens de la terre” (Magicians of the Earth), which was organized by Jean-Hubert Martin, then director of the Paris Biennale and the Center Pompidou. Marten then for the first time brought together about fifty artists from Western centers of artistic culture and fifty artists from the so-called “outskirts” – Asia, Africa, Oceania and Latin America. Among the few African representatives was Samba Sheri. After this exhibition, the name of Sheri sounded even louder and already on the international stage. Since then, its popularity has only grown every year. His cheerful, sometimes poster-like works with African flair, African rhythm and humor have found their audience and beat more and more new price records every year.
