John Kilaka

John Kilaka was born in 1966 in a small village in south western Tanzania.

As a child he went with his father to plough the field, fishing and hunting - but his passion was painting.

At the age of twenty years John Kilaka went to Dar es Salaam in order to make his talent into a career. He joined the painter's studio "Village Museum", which was founded in the seventies by Eduardo Saidi Tinga Tinga, the pioneer of modern African art, and  started to exhibit his pictures. Since then John Kilaka is one of those artists who continued to develop a contemporary version of the legacy of early Tanzanian "square painting".

John Kilaka, who also has illustrated children's books lives and works in Dar es Salaam.

www.kilaka.org

"Life Colours", Contemporary Art from Africa, SiemensForum Erlangen, 11.01. - 07.03.2002

"Medicine in Contemporary African Art", Gallery ZAK, Fürth, Bavaria, 13.02. – 13.05.1998