A privileged observer of life in Kinshasa and owner of an ironic and corrosive humour, Joseph Kinkonda a.k.a. Chéri Cherin begins by portraying all that surrounds him: social conflicts, infidelity, religion, discretionary power, the 'sape' phenomenon, the big city and all its idiosyncrasies.

However, Cherin 's world's borders have long ago extended beyond 'Kin la Belle' or his native Democratic Republic of Congo.

Today he is one of the most important artists of ex-Zaire's so called 'popular painting movement' and one of the most famous contemporary african artists in the world.

Like with Chéri Samba, who is undoubtelly the top name of this 'movement', Chéri Cherin's work has travelled the globe in recent years and it has been featured in exhibitions from the Centre Pompidou to the Guggenheim or recently Tate Modern.

The phenomenon of 'popular' painting in Kinshasa has it's origin in the 70's of the 20th century. In 1978, the show 'Art Partout' at the Académie de Beaux Arts, drives a broader attention for the first time to a group of 'popular' painters, so called because their narrative and representative painting had it's roots in the community and to the community it was directed - which included Chéri Samba, Bodo Pambu, Moke and Chéri Cherin.

CHERIN is an acronym for "Creator, Unclassifiable, Remarkable, Expressionist, Unique-in-its-style", attributes which most members of this 'movement' are very proud of…

Chéri Cherin 's painting differentiates itself from the other members' essentially for the creativity of the compositions, the technical skills and, above all, the acute political discourse. Shape and content, but also decorative qualities have here an almost equivalent weight.

The artist's intention is to draw the observer into his own interpretation of the facts and situations depicted.