Government Art Collection acquires Journaliste (2024) by Djofray Makumbu

Djofray Makumbu, Journaliste, 2024, Acrylic and ink on canvas, 92 × 122 cm. Courtesy of the artist and Bolanle Contemporary. Photography by Haiyi Wany.

Bolanle Contemporary is proud to announce that Djofray Makumbu’s painting Journaliste (2024) has been acquired by the Government Art Collection.

The work depicts Paul Bazakana, a distinguished Congolese journalist whose writings profoundly influenced cultural narratives across Kinshasa and Paris through publications such as Salongo and Ebène Magazine. Bazakana was a close friend of Makumbu’s father and a familiar presence in the family home in East London during the 1990s. Drawing from personal memory, family photographs and oral histories, Makumbu captures not only Bazakana’s likeness but also his enduring legacy.

Rendered in earthy browns, muted yellows and soft greys, the painting evokes the shifting textures of memory — how recollection fades, transforms and resurfaces over time. Makumbu’s thick, expressive outlines and characteristic exaggerations bring the figure to life, infusing it with warmth and vitality. A framed image of Patrice Lumumba, the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s first Prime Minister, appears in the background, evoking a wider lineage of Pan-African thought, journalism and resistance.

Through Journaliste, Makumbu underscores the vital role of African journalists in reclaiming histories and shaping narratives that resist erasure. The work stands as both a tribute and a testimony — to memory as an active, evolving force, and to the power of art in sustaining collective remembrance.