“Popular Painting” from Kinshasa, running until March 2008, showcases a selection of paintings composed by five artists originating from Kinshasa, who are collectively known as the School of Popular Painting.

Founded by Chéri Samba in the mid 1970s, and later joined by fellow artists Bodo, Chéri Chérin, Cheik Ledy, and Moke, the School strives to use the canvas as a medium to reflect social change, focusing on personal experiences derived from their daily lives and culture.

This striking yet alarmingly frank show depicts the social and political situations facing the local communities of Kinshasa, with both satirical and distinctly dark undertones.

When civil war broke out after rebel Mobutu Sese Seko staged a military coup and seized power in 1965, the Democratic Republic of Congo, like many of its neighbouring nations, became commonly associated with violence, death, and destruction, and this is one of the central subjects in the show.

‘Little Kadogo’, a creation by Chéri Samba, depicts an innocent looking young boy wearing army issue attire with his hands raised in surrender. A third hand holding a gun appears from behind him, symbolising the widespread enlisting of child soldiers, who make up a shocking 40 per cent of the country’s armies and militias.

A mere pawn swept up in a typhoon of bloody war and terror, the poor young boy has somewhat ironically been juxtaposed with vibrant, blooming flowers, which sharply contrast to the lives of so many blossoming young individuals, which are so cruelly snatched away.

Chéri Chérin’s ‘Anatomic Bombe’ exposes more disturbing truths about the war torn country. More than 5,000 UN peacekeepers have been deployed to the Democratic Republic of Congo, to try and monitor a ceasefire between rival ethnic groups and militias, but unfortunately, as Chérin’s work indicates, their presence has also been deeply threatening, and served to intensify tensions within local communities.

The political theme sidetracks as the artists begin to contemplate the commercial nature of the art world. In ‘I Don’t Understand’ by Cheik Ledy, the brother of Chéri Samba, the artist depicts himself in a moment of confusion within a modern gallery containing abstract works – suggesting distaste at the notion of art for art sake perhaps.

Meanwhile, in ‘A Painting To Fight For’, by Chéri Samba, the artist shows himself to be trapped within his canvas, suffering at the hands of critics and promoters who, in pursuit of profit, have exposed him to a dangerous kind of popularity.

As men tug and grapple for a piece of his passion, Samba is unmistakably in a crucifix-like position; it is almost as if he is martyring himself to defend his art and its origins.

Moke also explores the experience of being an artist in an untitled and very tongue in cheek painting, in which he depicts himself as a financially successful artist or dealer in the centre foreground.

The show then turns in a more philosophical direction, mulling over man’s intrinsically destructive nature and the future of mother earth.

‘Turbulent World! Where Are We Going?’, a panoramic painting by Bodo, addressing the troubled state of the world from Africa’s perspective, and is said to take its inspiration from Gauguin’s 1897 creation, ‘Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?’.

Suicide bombers and soldiers without brains are juxtaposed with infrastructure and the Internet, to create an extraordinary assault on the senses. As western man slowly destroys the planet in pursuit of greed and an overwhelming desire to advance technologically, Africa is left in limbo, unable to predict its direction in an unknown future.

By comparison, Chéri Chérin’s equally audacious creation, ‘Where is the World Going?’, reflects on moral beliefs about topical and taboo issues across the world, including AIDS, religious warfare, homosexuality, smoking cannabis, immigration, racism, cannibalism, naturism and even bestiality, to create a bold, dramatic canvas that allures and appalls the viewer simultaneously.

Popular Paintings from Kinshasa is part of the States of Flux suite on level five of the gallery, which focuses on cubism, futurism and vorticism, as well as presenting work revealing a change in modernity.

Like many of their artistic counterparts within this section of the Tate Modern, the School of Popular Painting have made a conscious decision to move away from traditional picture making, and instead use dynamic and forceful language as a means to engage with contemporary culture.

It certainly is a fitting place for such a remarkably blunt exhibition, which both confirms, and contrasts against, traditional stereotypes of the Democratic Republic of Congo, revealing new dimensions rarely seen in the popular press.