Bill Kouélany’s work melds multiple media: painting, collage, installation, spoken and written word, video and performance. Early influences were visual artists prominent on the cultural scene in Brazzaville, her hometown, and the late Congolese poet and political activist Tchikaya U’tamsi. Kouélany’s work explores themes of acute loneliness, highlighting the impact of economic and gender violence on lives lived in the urban South. Metaphors of tearing and stitching, breakage and consolidation suffuse her monumental paintings, collages and installations. Raucous humour and jabs of irony layer onto the work a powerful element of social and political critique.
Kouélany was the first Sub-Saharan woman artist invited to take part in Documenta, one of the contemporary art world’s most prestigious biennales. Residencies and exhibitions today keep her on the road much of the year, throughout Africa, Europe and, most recently with SPARCK, Asia.
Kouélany is the founder and director of Ateliers Sahm in Brazzaville: https://www.rfi.fr/fr/emission/20130306-ateliers-sahm-brazzaville
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