Zerihun Seyoum

Zerihun Seyoum is a contemporary Ethiopian painter whose work usually depicts daily life in Ethiopia, from street scenes to airports. One of the major themes that runs throughout his body of work is the hybrid nature of life, with the traditional meeting the modern, and the mixing of different local and international cultural elements. His style also takes a hybrid form. For example, The Chain Seller shows a clear early 20th-century modernist influence, whilst Ethiopian Wedding blends modernism with elements typical of medieval Ethiopian church art - crowds of faces with large white oval eyes. Seyoum has a website with a great selection of his paintings here.

The Chain Seller, 2009

Checkpoint, 2007

Ethiopian Wedding, 2006

Ketta, 2003

Cheri Samba

Internationally, Cheri Samba is one of Africa's best-known artists. Although entirely self-taught, he has become famous worldwide for his paintings which frequently provide a vivid political and social commentary on life in his native Congo as well as abroad. His career stretches back 30 years, and in 2007 he had a prestigious retrospective at the Tate Modern, London. In keeping with local practice, many of his paintings incorporate text (in both French and Lingala), which acts as a further level of comment and/or critique on the topics explored in his paintings. The use of potent symbols, such as the mermaid-spirit Mami Wata, can also be seen in Samba's work, and these convey additional meanings. A strong sense of the absurd and the ironic pervades much of his output.

J'aime la couleur, 2003

Le Secret d'un petit poisson devenu grand, 2002

Little Kadogo, 2004

There is a lot of information online about Samba, but good starting points are this interview, and a short biography with a wide selection of his work which can be found here.