Raymond Tsham, Symphonie des masques, 2019. Ballpoint pen on paper, 80 x 64 cm. Courtesy Collezione 54, Milan.

Raymond Tsham, born Raymond Tsham Mateng Lomami, was born in 1963 in Lubunz, in the Kasai Oriental province of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

His artistic trajectory is distinguished by a rigorous and singular visual exploration of drawing as a tool for thought and vision, positioning him among the most original voices in contemporary African art.

Tsham lives and works in Kinshasa, where he has developed a distinctive graphic language based on the use of the simple ballpoint pen as his primary means of expression.

After studying at the Institut des Beaux-Arts in Kinshasa, where he graduated in 1989, Tsham gradually built a practice centered on the act of drawing, celebrating an art cultivated through patience, precision, and concentration. From a young age, his talent for drawing was clearly evident: the ballpoint pen became not a limitation, but a medium of freedom and invention, capable of generating images rich with cultural and historical references.

Tsham’s work is characterized by an extraordinary ability to render, with ballpoint lines and strokes, compositions based on masks, anthropomorphic figures, archetypes, and narrative sequences inspired by traditional African statuary as well as by history and contemporaneity. His drawings are not simple reproductions: they are reworkings, visual syntheses that transform and revitalize the forms of African heritage, animating them with rhythm, dialogue, and symbolism.

Tsham’s visual language presents a calibrated balance between memory and invention: the surfaces of his paper are traversed by a dense network of marks, foregrounding the materiality of the line and the rhythm of the hachure. His choice of ballpoint pen—a humble, everyday instrument—allows him to create works of great expressive power, imbued with cultural references and a visual energy that reflects the complexity of the contemporary world.

Throughout his career, Tsham has exhibited in numerous group and solo shows in Africa, Europe, and beyond, contributing to the international visibility of contemporary Congolese art. His works have been presented in major exhibitions and venues such as the Espace Texaf-Bilembo in Kinshasa, as well as in galleries and fairs dedicated to African art.

Today, Raymond Tsham continues to live and work in Kinshasa, maintaining a rigorous and personal practice. His work demonstrates a profound reflection on the function of drawing as a form of knowledge and on the ability of line to evoke stories, memories, and identities. Through the ballpoint pen, Tsham continues to intertwine past and present, tradition and contemporaneity, making his work a powerful and original synthesis in the panorama of contemporary African art.

Go to Contemporary African Art [QR]