Sadikou Oukpedjo

Nouvelle Mythologie #3, 2019

Unique Artwork

Mixed media

Mixed media on canvas

CM H 284 W 353

IN H 111.81 W 138.98

Signed by artist

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About the work

Nouvelle Mythologie #3, 2019

This work is part of the latest body of work of Sadikou Oukpedjo. This series is the second solo exhibition of the artist entitled "Silentium" at galerie Cécile Fakhoury in 2019.

Since speech has lost its power to act, Sadikou Oukpedjo sets his paintings against this silence. Through his work, he denounces a resounding absence, a contagious internal mutism that silences all that should be said not only to others, but also to ourselves in the first place; words whose violence and strength would otherwise suffice to break the wall of silence and the silence of our consciousness.
When the consciousness becomes quiet, mankind falls from its pedestal and loses the legitimacy of its superiority. The metamorphosis that occurs before our eyes testifies to the urgency of a paradigm shift. This silence must be heard and acknowledged for us to reclaim an authentic humane voice and to regain the performative nature of speech.

Set in a delicate balance between being and nothingness, the evanescent figures arising from his canvases seem to be fighting against their own disappearance. Mankind is absorbed in a hand-to-hand combat with his double nature, a struggle with no winner. Inherently part of its being, the animal side now represents its fall just as well as its rise.

About artist

Sadikou Oukpedjo

The gesture and expressiveness of Sadikou Oukpedjo are driven by doubts and apprehensions of the world as he sees it. For him, the animal world is a source of essential questioning for man humans to find his place in our societies, at the risk to lose sight of certain values, traditions and precepts of nature.

The process of questioning our deep origins finds its roots in the human need of gaining access to the knowledge of oneself, through multiple and ancestral attempts - cosmogony, rituals, sorcery, magic. Henceforth, the work of Sadikou Oukpedjo is one of them.

His representations are filled with and penetrated by the invisible and its power, by the unknown and the hidden. Man analyses the world, models the nature, tries to know the secrets which one will be able to use. He is a magician, a master, an illusionist, a savant, when the essence of live inevitably transforms itself and transcends the world of ideas.

The pastel on paper, the monumental outdoor sculptures, the imposing canvas, the engravings, the ceramics and the carved stones reflect an interior state, in the tortuous silence of one's own self. This morphological anatomical study relates to the spiritual.The creature that Sadikou Oukpedjo gives existence to, in his works, constitutes a record of the human conscience, crossed by the issue of its primary origin, leading towards an uncertain future.

About Gallery

Galerie Cécile Fakhoury

Galerie Cécile Fakhoury opened its doors in Abidjan, Ivory Coast in September 2012. In May, 2018 the gallery inaugurated second space in Dakar, Senegal and a showroom in Paris in France.

The gallery aims at promoting contemporary art in Africa. It offers visibility to creativity and contemporary artistic diversity in Africa through its programming of solo shows and group exhibitions, participation in international art fairs and biennales, and through its collaboration with foreign galleries.

Strongly rooted in their respective identities and stories, the artists represented by the gallery distinguish themselves through the use of a language that abolishes barriers and rejects geographical stigmatisation. Observers of a world they live in, these artists take an enlightened and critical look at our society. The diversity of their aesthetic gestures, committed positions to grab the complexity of History, participates in the writing of a living memory and asks us to reconsider our own relation to the world.

Cécile Fakhoury Abidjan
Boulevard Latrille
Between Carrefour de la Vie and le carrefour de la RTI
Between Sodemi and Immeuble Carbone
Cocody
Abidjan - Ivory Coast

Cécile Fakhoury Dakar
Rue Carnot x Béranger Féraud
Behind, Hotel Pullman
Plateau
BP 23402
Dakar - Sénégal