Third Republic

Cheik Ledy (born in 1962 in Kinto-M’Vuila, Republic of the Congo), was trained in art by his elder brother Chéri Samba. Unlike the young popular artists of his generation, who were self-made and for many years lived a precarious existence, Cheik Ledy benefited greatly from the beginning of his career from his brother’s experience and his access to fine art materials. Like Samba, Ledy builds his compositions with care, interspersing bilingual text (French and Lingala) and image with sophisticated ease.

Ledy’s narratives are imbued with spontaneity, matched by the frankness with which he tackles his frequently controversial themes. He depicted everyday incidents, street-topics (‘sidewalk radio” as the grapevine is called), urban myths, harsh realities. Committed to the art of communication, Ledy expressed the political history and social life of his community; he also documented with rare wit his own status as a painter. But his work is not merely an illustrated chronicle or a diary of his emotional life. He casts a critical eye on his surroundings, with a caustic humor that makes his characters almost seem like caricatures. He treated without complacency not only the biting questions of his day, but also those of world history, challenging his viewers to do the same.