We recently connected with Benj Kinenga and have shared our conversation below.

Benj , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I am Benj Mushila Kinenga, born and raised in Kinshasa. I have been passionate about Arts since my childhood. In my school career everyone validated the artistic talent that I had. It gave me confidence and encouraged me to become one day a professional artist. Social conditions in Africa did not allow me to embrace the sector with complete confidence. My parents feared that I can be hopeless in my life. I had to cross the whole city to go study at the fine art school. I am generally fearless in my values and passions.

In my case, art chose me. I had the ability to reproduce what I perceived during my childhood with details that were not perceived by other children of my age. At 11 years old I was known in the community for my drawings and small jobs i did which already gave me a little money. When i was freshman in College (1st year of Bachelor’s degree) that I met a professor who supervised me in his studio. This is where I established my artistic practice on a professional level. China allowed me to evolve especially in the business sense regarding painting.

Having a specialty in Oil Painting, works related to this are my first products. I make portraits embodying the personality of the client or the person who will be painted, since I like to transcend the technical part to touch the emotional part.
I make paintings that awaken us to our relationship with our environment, our ecosystem or our planet.
I am also in the restoration of works of art according to my specialty (oil or acrylic painting) as a service.
And finally, I am also in artistic teaching for those who want to have the foundations of drawing or painting in the professional sense or not. I mentor young artists who want to find a style or develop it if they already have one.

Among my values, there is elegance in simplicity and excellence. This is what I deliver into my artwork.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

There are as many:

My parents always supported me during my childhood, but they could not bear to see me in the future as a poor artist exchanging his work for a dish. Their fear about the choice of my profession made me aware that I had no room to make mistakes. I remember when I was a teenager, playing the piano in church, My teenager friends asked me if my future wife would eat the papers of my drawings. It was to discourage me from pursuing artistic studies. They means no one zill be qbout to buy my artworks.

At the end of my secondary studies, my father advised me to not pursue painting as major. I remember the conversation like it was yesterday. He told me that not only artistic studies are expensive but also that there was no real way out of it, I could go a whole year without having a client and how do i able to take care of my family. My reaction was: if there are ten artists in this country who make their entire living from art, I will be counted among; if there are five, I will be there, if there are two, it will be another and me, if there is one it will be me and if there is no one I will go abroad for living. I was so determined to succeed in what I did that nothing could discourage me.

I won’t talk about how sometimes people criticized me for not being good in my art.
I’ve been several months without having a customer or selling a product. But patience, consistency or perseverance always pays off in the end.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

Through the need for an outlet that painting brings me, I like to open the window of an imaginary world in what we perceive every day.

I like when people observing my paintings find life in my works and want to take part of them. The escape to leave this world of wars and problems pushes me to imagine how to give hope through my artworks. How to make the weak feel that they are strong and those who are confused about order through my creations. My mission is to transmit the beauty perceived and felt in my life. Sometimes coming from pain and disappointment, but which I manage to transform into an art masterpiece. My artworks can be placed in various places to give or restore hope for beauty, goodness and truth in our world.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.kinengaart.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/benjkinenga/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benj-kinenga-45641660/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@benjkinenga4147

Image Credits
Kinenga