Today we’d like to introduce you to Bayunga Kialeuka.
Hi Bayunga, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
I was six years old at the time of departure from Kinshasa. My family seemily left the comfortable familiarity of Avenue Bandundu to arrive in the Miami neighborhood of Opa-Locka in 1981. This neighborhood would be our storied introduction to black America giving shape to my so called assimilation. When introduced to cinema and tv, I would learn of the common exaltation of social pleasures symbiotically trapped with the heart ache of fantasy and classicism. My worldview evolved with every experience that I either endured or witnessed of others. There are challenges great and small that dictate the decisions that people make everyday to act or not. My work’s psychological sense of story derives from these observations of our individual free will. We are complicit in everyway for the status of our sense of existence therefore our reactions unto others is extremely revelatory of the character we choose.
My paintings attempt to bridge the gap between spectator and participants in all areas of societal activities.
Reflecting on my fond memories and at times stressful childhood in Opa-Locka brings me back to recount its philosophically imprint on my disposition.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
I can best say that my ego has been the greatest obstacle of life thus far.
There were times when I put too much stock into my pride preventing me from benefitting from its lessons.
There were also instances when my pride was all I had to hold onto in order to protect my psychological well-being…
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I am known more as a painter, but I continue to work extensively as an exhibition producer.
I adopted this challenge because not being accepted to mainstream art spaces was never an attack to how I saw myself as an artist.
What do you like best about our city? What do you like least?
I like most that a lot of Miami is culturally familiar to me, considering my roots from Kinshasa, Congo.
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Website: www.bayungakialeuka.studio
- Instagram: bayunga.kialeuka.studio
