Moseka Yogo Ambake or Yogo Ambake Moseka
(29 August 19566 May 2019) was a Congolese-born painter who later lived and worked in Brussels, Belgium. Active during the 1980s and 1990s, her work was featured in several international exhibitions.
Biography
Moseka was born in
Kinshasa
Kinshasa (; ; ln, Kinsásá), formerly Léopoldville ( nl, Leopoldstad), is the capital and largest city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Once a site of fishing and trading villages situated along the Congo River, Kinshasa is now one o ...
,
Belgian Congo
The Belgian Congo (french: Congo belge, ; nl, Belgisch-Congo) was a Belgian colony in Central Africa from 1908 until independence in 1960. The former colony adopted its present name, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), in 1964.
Colo ...
(now the
Democratic Republic of the Congo
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (french: République démocratique du Congo (RDC), colloquially "La RDC" ), informally Congo-Kinshasa, DR Congo, the DRC, the DROC, or the Congo, and formerly and also colloquially Zaire, is a country in ...
), on August 29, 1956.
In the traditions of her community (located between
Mbandak and
Kisangani), "Moseka" is the name given to the first daughter of the family.
She attended secondary school but had to leave in her third year due to financial difficulties.
Moseka lived in
Mont-Ngafula
Mont Ngafula is a municipality (''commune'') in the Lukunga district of Kinshasa, the capital city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
It is in the hilly southern area of Kinshasa and is intersected by the Lukaya River valley in its southern ...
, Democratic Republic of the Congo, with her husband, European architect and interior designer Thierry Dartois.
A self-taught artist, she started by drawing on the walls of their home.
She started studying privately with watercolorist and family friend Theo Verwilghen, who discouraged her from pursuing more formal training at the capital's art academy for fear that this would impede her natural talent.
She later moved to Brussels with her family.
Moseka had her first exhibition in Kinshasa in 1986 at the private gallery of Louis van Bever.
Her work was featured in solo retrospective exhibitions at the
Royal Museum for Central Africa in Brussels (1993) and at the
Museum of Ethnology in
Hamburg
(male), (female) en, Hamburger(s),
Hamburgian(s)
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(1994).
Her work was also included in a group exhibition, ''Winds of Change'', with
Hassan Aliyu and
Henrietta Atooma Alele at
198 Contemporary Arts and Learning
198 Contemporary Arts and Learning, also known as the 198 Gallery or 198, is an art space and gallery in Railton Road, Brixton, London, that for more than three decades has had a strong commitment to diversity, equality and inclusion.
History
The ...
in London (1995-1996).
In an essay, Victor Bol wrote that Moseka's style was "radically distinct from the popular movement" of art in Kinshasa, with her tendency to "capture other things more things than the concrete exteriors and appearances of the world." In a 1999 article published in ''
Annales Aequatoria'' on modern Congolese painters, writer Mabiala Mantuba-Ngoma identified Moseka as the only Congolese woman who had achieved renown for her artwork.
Moseka died on 6 May 2019 in Brussels.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Moseka Yogo Ambake
1956 births
2019 deaths
People from Kinshasa
Democratic Republic of the Congo painters