Bahati Simoens is a Belgian-Congolese artist, currently based in Johannesburg (South Africa). Bahati was born in Munanira (Burundi, 1992), and grew up in Ostend on the Belgian coast for the majority of her childhood. She started her professional career as a visual artist in 2021.
She describes her practise to be a love letter to the Black body, a visual language where bright light and deep shadows coexist harmoniously. Vibrant figurative paintings heavily inspired by personal childhood memories combined with everyday life experiences. Bahati’s figures take up space through a colourful softness and a warm demeanor.
What started as an intuitive form of self therapy, searching for a sense of home, now feels like holding up the mirror to others. Through a whimsical lens of her own sense of belonging Bahati’s aim is to make Black people feel seen and leave them with a feeling they themselves didn’t know was missing within.