Cape Verdean artist Kiki Lima has died.

The Cape Verdean President and the archipelago's Government published messages of condolence this Sunday following the death, due to illness, of Kiki Lima, 72, one of Cape Verde's most acclaimed painters.

The artist was in Lisbon, where he was receiving medical treatment, and died this morning, according to his brother, Mick Lima, on Rádio de Cabo Verde (RCV).

"Considered by many to be one of the greatest Cape Verdean painters of all time, Kiki Lima was a true ambassador" of the islands' culture, "whose passion and dedication to art inspired generations," the Presidency of the Republic published online.

“Kiki Lima also leaves a legacy as a musician and a scholar of traditional Cape Verdean music,” with the albums Txuva and Midje Má Tambor, he added.

The Government responded with a statement from the Ministry of Culture, stating that it had lost “an ambassador of Cape Verdean culture, combining visual languages with music and design.”

"An essential figure in national culture, Kiki Lima, one of the greatest figures in Cape Verdean visual arts, had a remarkable career marked by vibrant creativity, a unique style, and a total dedication to art and Cape Verdean identity," he noted in the same note.

He signed more than a thousand works and participated in more than 200 solo exhibitions in Cape Verde and abroad, he added.

Kiki Lima was born in Ponta do Sol, on the Cape Verdean island of Santo Antão, on April 15, 1953. In an interview with Lusa, after opening an exhibition in Praia in 2012, Kiki Lima considered himself “a supporter of women for their intrinsic value: they are mothers, wives, sisters and have a very important role in our lives.”

"I'm a figurative painter. I take the female figure, exploring its plasticity from an aesthetic point of view, and I make this connection with music and painting. That's the main reason for the exhibition," he stated at the event, adding that he came to painting "late" and that he only saw an exhibition at the age of 21.

He graduated in Communication Design from the Faculty of Fine Arts in Lisbon, but before that, he attended several visual arts courses in Portugal, supporting a body of work that goes beyond painting.

Kiki Lima's works are present in important private and institutional contemporary art spaces and collections, and he is considered one of the pioneers of painting in Cape Verde.

“I wasn’t influenced by Cape Verdean painters, and I couldn’t have been, because they didn’t exist,” he said.