Born in 1993 in Kinshasa, Joycenath Tshamala studied at the Institute of Fine Arts of Kinshasa and graduated in 2012. At the age of 21, he started establishing his artistic personality as a painter and multifaceted artist. The main originality of his work stems from an artistic and philosophical position to give life, to revive beauty to corroded pieces including CDs or cassette tapes.
Joycenath Tshamala explores migration issues through the File d'attente series representing the bureaucratic exodus of Congolese people waiting in line at airports to be processed, with their passports in hand. Tshamala works using rusty razor blades - the rust indexing chaos and entropy and the blades representing the cutting and uprooting of individuals leaving for Europe, often cutting off all ties with their families. His other series explores the restoring of human dignity - an attempt both to expose the atrocities perpetrated under King Leopold and to repair the horrific injuries suffered by hordes of unknown and forgotten Congolese, by sitting the mutilated victims on Caryatid stools, traditionally reserved for royalty.
His work emphasizes the importance of ethics and the rebirth of lost values. It communicates urgency on pressing issues, it is an awareness of the beauty of life despite hardship and tragedies. Tshamala’s art is a reminder that where life has been distorted, hope can always be glimpsed and renewed.