Looking and seeing what is visible, and invisible… The artists in this exhibition use three totally different media to offer us three takes on appearance. Amani Bodo’s work is all about ostentation, Gosette Lubondo majors on ghosts and mirages, and there are enigmas behind Eli Made’s faces.

Fine attire and showmanship are at the heart of Sape dandy culture, a subject dear to Amani Bodo, who excels in the art of depicting sapeurs and their gift for elegance and creativity. From Messi le roi Léo, from a series in which he portrayed international celebrities as Congolese sapeurs, to Sapeur bilengi ya nzoyi, Amani Bodo plays on human taste for showing off.

The photographer Gosette Lubondo plays with both appearance and apparition. Through her two Imaginary Trip series, she invites us to look beyond what is immediately perceptible, making use of photography to conjure up memories or dreams. Lubondo recreates the look of a world by inviting in both the past and all the projections it brings to mind in the person viewing the works. Seemingly real characters rub shoulders with seemingly fictitious, implicitly depicted ones, belonging to an unidentified time.

The very young artist Eli Made, whose portraits explore different mental states, also invites us to look beyond form. He endeavours to convey the human experience behind a subject’s appearance. Using his rare bleach-on-fabric technique, he creates portraits exploring diverse mental states – suffering, inner struggle, meditation, mental transformation, resilience – in a sophisticated and unsettling chiaroscuro ambience.