Jack Kabangu

Theo believes that contemporary art is more than a site of formal experimentation; it is a field where identity, history, memory, and the unconscious are continuously reconfigured. Art is not simply an act of representation but a performative process that confronts suppressed pasts and invents new narratives. In this spirit, THEO presents the first solo exhibition in Korea of Zambian-born artist Jack Kabangu (b.1996).

His series Dark Face Paintings lies at the heart of this exhibition. For Kabangu, the face is not merely a portrait but a site of endless repetition and variation—where personal memory and the unconscious intertwine with collective history and identity. Each visage becomes a mirror that reflects multiple emotions—anxiety, anger, joy, fear—resisting a single, fixed interpretation and instead opening a field of layered meanings.

Kabangu draws upon the visual language of African masks while simultaneously subverting the racist caricatures of 19th-century Europe, such as the Jim Crow or Golliwog figures. Through bold gestures and vivid color, he transforms these discriminatory symbols into new emblems of identity—imbued with agency, resilience, and vitality.

Formally, his paintings inherit the gestural intensity and material weight of Abstract Expressionism, yet they merge with musical rhythm and fragments of personal memory to create a distinctive visual language. Swirling currents, mandala-like floral motifs, and ghostly apparitions summon fragments of dreams and the unconscious, while the present moment fills these gaps with renewed meaning.

Dark Face Paintings emerges at the threshold where light and darkness, order and chaos, beauty and grotesque converge. Beyond the painted surface, the series reveals the historical and cultural strata of identity, memory, emotion, and desire. Kabangu’ s work not only overturns the wounds of the past but also constructs a space for selfhood in the present, while opening a horizon for imagining the future.