Gestural painting
Grâce
Grâce
Ilunga
She paints bodies in celebration, between the street rumba of Kinshasa and the memory of ritual dance.
Biography
« I don't paint dancers. I paint what lingers in the air after they have passed. »
Trained at the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Kinshasa, Grâce Ilunga has been developing a fast, luminous painting of gesture since 2012, in which figures seem to emerge from colour itself.
Her canvases capture the suspended instant of a dance: a spinning wrapper, an outstretched hand, a flash of light on skin. She works in acrylic and palette knife, layer upon layer, often at monumental scale.
Career
- “Rhythms”, solo exhibition — Fadelle Institut
- Lubumbashi Biennale, official selection
- Artist residency, Dakar