JÖEL MPAH DOOH

Joël Mpah Dooh | African Urbanism: A selection of mediums

This collection of works by Joël Mpah Dooh explores his unique mark-making technique over various mediums, etching, linocut, monoprint and original oils on aluminium. An artist of international acclaim, Joël Mpah Dooh has become iconic as a pan-African artist whose distinct style of figuration is immediately recognisable. 

We see how his unique figuration is centred around the urban experience in this collection, "Waiting with Big Bag", and the Johannesburg urban-motif in pieces like " Jozi After the Robot I & II" as well as "My Jozi", a massive linocut made to the iconic African City. 

Let's take a journey through this collection of African Urbanism celebrated in the muted sepia tones of his etchings and the bold and vibrant colours of his original oils on aluminium.

Joël Mpah Dooh (b. 1956, Cameroon) is a graduate of the Conservatoire Municipal des Beaux-Arts of Amiens (France). His first works on canvas offer filiform characters in postures expressing pain and seeking deliverance. His later works became very urban writings, similar to graffiti. His experiments led him to work in three dimensions, volume representing the characters of his first paintings, interpreting the poverty of amorphous people left to themselves. He works with other materials such as aluminium foil, which he paints and scratches, or Plexiglas sheets, also scratched up, which with light creates games of shadows.