‘Thinking about what I search for I create’, Katunga says.

The work of Katunga’s imagination is a healing force in his life. Through art, he journeys to a place where he feels at home and finds food for his thought.
‘I am a farmer in my artwork, like my father was. He also had cattle and goats. He planted food and I saw him do that. This is why I draw. When I draw I see these things.

‘We used everything we found in nature. There was a round fruit in Angola. When we had eaten the insides, we would draw on the outsides. When my parents killed an animal, they dried the skin and rubbed it until it was soft. When it was dry, they painted on it. They often painted flowers. Then they’ll wrap it around our bodies. I saw this all the while I grew up. In my paintings I look for this while I paint. I have this in me.’

Katunga was born in 1958 in Angola. His childhood was spent with his parents in Mavinga, where his family made a living from hunting and gathering veld food.
He was employed by the Portuguese military for more than a decade and, during the late 1970s became a tracker in the South African Defence Force.
Later he and his wife, Julietta resettled at Schmidtsdrift, South Africa where he made a living of selling well crafted bow and arrow sets and containers.
It was in 1994 that he joined the Cultural Project.