La Belle Fille
Sim Simaro
Oil painting on canvas
Mami Wata and Tati Wata are mythological figures who feature in many stories in the Democratic Republic of Congo and have thus become one of the best-known motifs in popular painting. In Kinshasa, mermaids are often considered good luck charms, but they can also cause great misfortune. Their appearance is associated with financial wealth and rapid success, which can quickly turn into profound misfortune. Sim Simaro combines historical myth with everyday events and his own reality. The buyers of his paintings, European curators, collectors and museum representatives, appear in his paintings as mermaids and angels. He himself appears as a praying figure, addressing himself as the prophet Sim Simaro, asking for success. The work “Oh Sim, Oh Sim” combines Mami Wata, the prayer, with Sim Simaro, a snake, and the all-seeing eye as a metaphor for his artistic production: the artist’s eye that sees through the world of art, and his talent as the power to influence it.
Sim Simaro is a Congolese painter, born in 1952 in Kilumbu, province of Bas-Congo in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In 1970 he arrived in Kinshasa to continue his studies at the Institut Kimbanguiste Ngilima, but failed the state exams. As he was already drawing at school and had some success with portraits of famous personalities, he decided to devote himself to painting. He spent time in several ateliers, learning mural decoration and the art of stamping: in 1972 the Arista Pintor studio of the painter Edouard Vango Zamatuta and from 1973 onwards of Jean-Marie Mansuela, and later painting at the Centre Art de Kigueja Bwabwa. As he did not want to limit himself to decorative painting, he opened his own studio, Publi Simaro, which produced works of art and advertising. Simaro understands the artist as a master of knowledge and techniques, who aims to lead the initiate to this knowledge in return for a fair fee. Sim Simaro is known today for his paintings with topics based on mythology, tales and legends. History, social and political life.
His work has been shown at the Art Partout exhibition in Kinshasa (1978), Kin Moto Na Brussels (2006), ‘La Cite dans la peinture populaire’, Centre Wallonie Bruxelles (2001) and at the ‘Regards sur les 15 ans de transition’ (2005) and ‘Le Congo d’hier, d’aujourd’hui et de demain’ (2007) exhibitions at the Hotel Memling, Kinshasa. He is vice-president of the Association des artistes peintres populaires de Kinshasa (AAPPA).