First monograph of the Beninese painter.
This catalog reviews the eponymous solo exhibition of Romeo Mivekannin which took place at the Galerie Cécile Fakhoury, Abidjan, in 2020.
It consists of a text by critic and art history professor Nadeije Laneyrie-Dagen, as well as introductory texts to the two major series of the artist, "Black Model" and "Barnum" and to his installation The Souls of Black Folk. The catalog also contains exhibition views and reproductions of works and details.
Born in 1986 in Bouaké (Ivory Coast), Roméo Mivekannin lives and works between Toulouse (France) and Cotonou (Benin). After training as a cabinetmaker and studying art history, Roméo Mivekannin chose to enter the Ecole Nationale Supérieure d'Architecture de Toulouse. In parallel to his studies, he developed a personal work of plastic creation, and experimented with several mediums, from sculpture to painting. Following his studies, he devoted himself to his work as a visual artist while beginning a thesis on the history of art, sociology and architecture.
At the crossroads of inherited tradition and the contemporary world, Roméo Mivekannin integrates his creations within an ancestral temporality, making his own rituals, echoing the voodoo cosmology, very present in Benin. Between painting, sculpture and installation, his universe is multidisciplinary and ambitious. The artist plays with materials and seeks to upset the established boundaries between disciplines, in order to operate both formally and symbolically an act of break-in that is unique to him.
With strength and subtlety, the artist unravels the threads of our confinement a little more each time, and thus questions our collective and intimate heritage. The artist's works propose a form of resistance strategy that mixes emotion with a critical eye.
