Pierre Mukeba, Samaki, 2020-21. Charcoal on paper. Courtesy: the artist and Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney.

Pierre Mukeba’s first drawings and paintings were made on bed sheets from a small table in his bedroom. In Black Emotion he lets go of the perfectly manipulated image, to explore a personal emotional journey of a relationship breakdown through the simple, uninhibited material of black charcoal on paper. With an intensity of feeling and a freedom of movement, these raw, charged works are direct and pure expressions of the artists hand: textured, layered rhythms on paper.

Touching on themes of brutality, violence, political and economic unrest as well as representations of Africans in contemporary culture, his potent and unique voice stirs emotion, weaving stories of the African diaspora, the refugee crisis, displacement and trauma from war into the fabric of Australia. Born in Bukeva, in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, seeking asylum in Australia in 2006, Mukeba weaves the stories of two cultures, from a place of both memory and imagination.

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