Out of the lingering effects of a brutal colonial regime, followed by a painful struggle for independence and decades of violence and political mismanagement, has emerged a meaningful creative expression. The character of which is as encumbered by the past as it is encouraged by the future. Kamuanga divides his practice between different kinds of commercial and creative work, drawing on forms of advertising and photography as well as traditional aesthetics. His paintings are an amalgam of complementary pop cultural forms, including music, fashion and dance. While influences and histories can be difficult to discern, Kamuanga’s paintings most certainly evade any structural narrative of postcolonial experience. Population sweeping wars, and even the atrocities of the present day, are a world away from Kamuanga’s brightly hued images of a utopian society. They speak of a young culture enraptured by commercialism, grappling with the new joys and anxieties born of African urbanism.