HILARY BALU
Biography
Hilary Balu, born in 1992 in Kinshasa, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, developed a passion for art from childhood. Growing up in a creative family environment, he received his first artistic training from his father, who was also an artist. In 2009, he entered the Institut des Beaux-Arts in Kinshasa to study arts, before specializing in painting at the Académie des Beaux-Arts between 2013 and 2014. A decisive encounter with the artist Vitshois Mwilambwe Bondo in 2016 encouraged him to free himself from the codes of Western art and explore a more personal aesthetic.
His work addresses the transformation of African society under the influence of globalization and consumerism. By reinterpreting ancestral Kongo myths through contemporary symbols, he highlights the effects of colonialism and globalization on African identity. His works illustrate the “brutal mutation” that the Democratic Republic of Congo has undergone in its cultural, political and economic dimensions.
Hilary Balu’s art is part of a narrative quest where beauty is not a simple ornament, but a trap revealing the scars of history. Through his creations, he invites the spectator to hear these stories and to understand that the degradation of places and bodies is not the end of a cycle, but the beginning of a timeless dialogue.
