Artist Registry
The White Columns Curated Artist Registry is an online platform for emerging and under-recognized artists to share images and information about their respective practices. The Registry seeks to create a context for artists who have yet to benefit from wider critical, curatorial or commercial support. To be eligible, artists cannot be affiliated with a commercial gallery in New York City.
To apply to the Registry, click here. Join our mailing list here to receive our open call announcement and other programming updates. For any further questions about the Registry, please contact us at registry@whitecolumns.org.
RESUME
My name is Joshua Kunda and I’m a 26 year old Conceptual and Digital Artist from Lusaka, Zambia. I was born in Swaziland now called eSwatini where I lived 19 years of my life. I attended an international high school called Waterford Kamhlaba which is a United World College. I then got a full scholarship to go study Business administration in America at The College of Idaho. Now you’re probably wondering how art came into my life? Well I have always loved art and heard about the greats such as Picasso, Van Gogh and Rembrandt. I started to immerse myself more in art and grew a love for Surrealism and Dada in particular. The work of Andre Bréton, Man Ray, Hannah Höch and Rene Magritte a trippy psychedelic mix far from the culture and ways of thinking I was taught in Africa. This led me to DuChamp and Dali. These artists then led me to Sigmund Freud and Freud led me to Carl Jung.
Within my art I’m interested firstly with the human condition and especially right now the African condition. What decades of colonialism, improper management of resources and corrupt leaders have done to the African psyche. My second interest is Afrofuturism. As I look at movements such as modernism, post modernism, art nouveau and the arts and crafts movement to name a few, we can see that the art transcended just the physical form of art to become a full blown movement. It went into architecture, film, fashion, industrial design, typography and graphics design. I think Afrofuturism can reach that same height if the continent collectively works together. The first commercial success of Afrofuturism can be seen in the film Black Panther. But this was just a starting point. As Africa looks towards a brighter future we need a movement to inspire both innovation and expressive thought. Challenging both the norms of Western perception and how Africans should address social political issues, the economy and progression towards becoming established entities within the global sphere of influence.
Thus as I keep creating I want to venture into industrial design, especially furniture and rug making. Ceramics, typography, painting and digital art to create a new design language.