Mr. Kinenga’s parents were both educators, giving Benj an inclination toward that same career path. Benj learned early on that teaching is not so much about telling, as it is about sharing. This, along with Mr. Kinenga’s passion for art, art history, and human culture allowed Mr. Kinenga to teach and research in China for four years. While teaching, Mr. Kinenga continued to develop his craft and personal style of painting, developing the vibrant and dramatic style of painting you can see in his work today. Above all, Mr. Kinenga is, and always will be, an artist.
Who is Benj Kinenga ?
Born and raised in Kinshasa, the capital city of the French speaking African country of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Benj Kinenga grew up bi-lingual speaking French and Lingala. His childhood interest in art eventually brought him to earn a Masters degree in Fine Arts. Mr Kinenga left Africa in 2015 to teach in China, first at the Nanjing International School, and then to head the art department of Painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kinshasa. Mr. Kinenga is now at home in the United States focusing primarily on his work in portraiture.
For Mr. Kinenga, painting is a journey into the imagination, and a window for the viewer to see into the soul of the artist, but for Benj it is also a way for him to provide an insight into the subject as well, allowing the viewer to see the truth of the subject from Mr. Kinenga’s perspective. Mr. Kinenga’s strong, dramatic strokes of color on the canvas bring the subject to transcend palpable reality into an otherworldly existence. This brings Mr. Kinenga’s paintings to life, expressing the soul of the subject, allowing the viewer, the art, and the artist to exchange ideas and concepts of daily existence from the mundane to the extreme.
More than just splashes of color on canvas, there is a higher purpose to this expressive process which is examining, regaining the lost balance of our planet, and starting the dialogue that leads to an awareness of the harmonious relationship that must be shared by every living being in order to save our world.