Chéri Cherin

CHÉRI CHERIN (Democratic Republic of Congo,1955-2025).
"Pelikan bleu canon", 2009.
Acrylic on canvas.
Signed and dated in the lower right corner.
Measurements: 135 x 2002 cm.
Chéri Cherin (Kinkonda Joseph Kubutuba) was a prominent Congolese painter. His artistic name is an acronym that alludes to the figure of an exceptional, remarkable, incomparable and naturalistic creator. His work combines a symbolic style close to naïf with a technically photographic virtuosity, a feature that enhances the satirical dimension with which he reflected the urban life of the Congo. His paintings record the accelerated transformation of Kinshasa, a city whose population grew exponentially during his lifetime.
From a young age he claimed to have a natural inclination towards art. Although he was initially oriented towards religious life, his talent led him to enter the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Kinshasa, where he studied ceramics before devoting himself fully to painting. After his training, he abandoned the academic path and worked in the streets, especially in the M'Ndjili neighborhood, creating commercial signs, advertisements and murals that defined his personal language.
Cherin was part of the aesthetic current linked to the Sapeurs movement, characterized by its social dimension and its symbolic opposition to the Mobutu regime. This sensibility was inserted in the development of the "peinture populaire", a deliberately anti-academic art whose main objective was to communicate directly with any spectator, regardless of his or her educational level.
From the 1990s onwards, he focused his production on painting on canvas, which increased his international recognition. He exhibited in cities in Africa, Europe, Asia and the Caribbean, and his work began to address issues of global politics through integrated portraits of historical figures such as Obama, Mandela or Lumumba. Among his most recurrent motifs, the figure of the traditional healer stands out as an allegory of the shortcomings of the country's health system. Works such as Mystique Congolaise (1999) or La lutte pour la survie (2002) show how Cherin articulated social criticism, popular imaginary and acute observation of the Congolese reality, consolidating himself as a singular voice within contemporary African art.