Joël Claude Mpah Dooh, born in

Nkongsamba Nkongsamba is a city in western Cameroon. It is in the Moungo department, which is in the Littoral. As of the 2005 Census, the city had a population of 104,050. It is a centre for the farming of palm oil, bananas and coffee, and is between two ...

(

Cameroon Cameroon, officially the Republic of Cameroon, is a country in Central Africa. It shares boundaries with Nigeria to the west and north, Chad to the northeast, the Central African Republic to the east, and Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and the R ...

) in 1956, is a

visual art The visual arts are art forms such as painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics, photography, video, image, filmmaking, design, crafts, and architecture. Many artistic disciplines such as performing arts, conceptual art, and texti ...

ist who lives and works in

Douala Douala is the largest city in Cameroon and its economic capital. It is also the capital of Cameroon's Littoral Region (Cameroon), Littoral Region. It was home to Central Africa's largest port, now being replaced by Kribi port. It has the country ...

Biography

Joël Claude Mpah Dooh 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 Graffiti (singular ''graffiti'', or ''graffito'' only in graffiti archeology) is writing or drawings made on a wall or other surface, usually without permission and within public view. Graffiti ranges from simple written "monikers" to elabor ...

. 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

aluminum foil Aluminium foil (or aluminum foil in American English; occasionally called tin foil) is aluminium prepared in thin metal leaves. The foil is pliable and can be readily bent or wrapped around objects. Thin foils are fragile and are sometimes ...

, which he paints and scratches, or

Plexiglas Poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) is a synthetic polymer derived from methyl methacrylate. It is a transparent thermoplastic, used as an engineering plastic. PMMA is also known as acrylic, acrylic glass, as well as by the trade names and bra ...

sheets, also scratched up, which with light creates games of shadows. In terms of public art, he is the author of one of the four works outside of the series ''Art’venture'', offered by

doual’art doual'art is a non profit cultural organisation and art centre founded in 1991 in Douala, Cameroon and focussed on new urban practices of African cities. History doual'art was registered as a non profit organization in 1992 and it was establish ...

to the city of Douala in 1992. During this workshop with computer-aided graphic design, he met the “dean” of Cameroonian artists

Koko Komégné Koko Komégné is a visual artist based in Douala and a promoter of the contemporary art scene in Cameroon. Life and career Koko Komégné was born in 1950 in Batoufam. In 1956 he moves to Yaoundé where he attends school and he starts drawi ...

, whom he befriended and cofounded the collective ''Kheops Club'' in 1994. Joel Mpah Dooh was also one of the artists invited to Scénographies Urbaines de Douala in 2002. He has participated in several collective and individual exhibitions, which brought him to Nigeria, South Africa, Senegal, the United States, Cuba, Lebanon and France. In 2007, he was invited by the Fondation Blachère à Apt (France) to inaugurate the residency series Art et entreprise.''Joël Mpah Dooh: éclipse : exposition du 1er mars au 20 mai, 2007, Fondation Jean-Paul Blachère'', Fondation Jean-Paul Blachère, 2007, 15 p. (catalogue d'exposition)

Expositions

2008 * ''After taste'', solo exhibition, Afronova Gallery, Johannesburg (Sudafrica) * ''Joburg scene'', thee-man show, Bag Factory, Johannesburg * ''As you like it'', group show, Johannesburg Art Fair, Sandton Convention Center, Johannesburg 2007 * ''Eclipse'', solo exhibition, Maisons Follies, Maubeuge (Francia) * ''Eclipse'', solo exhibition, Fondation Jean Paul Blachère, Apt (Francia) * ''Ba Mama'', two man show with Goddy Leye, Bonendale, Douala * ''Pistes africaines'', solo exhibition, Les Chantiers de la Lune, La Seyne sur Mer (Francia) 2006 * ''Just to say hello...'', solo exhibition, Afronova Gallery, Johannesburg * ''Rendez-vous'', solo exhibition, Mam Gallery, Douala * ''Reves croisees'', group show, Ateliers des Tanneurs, Brussels (Belgio) 2005 * ''Sans Titre'', solo exhibition, Théâtre de la ville en bois, La Rochelle (Francia) * ''Les galeries plastiques itinérantes'', Ouagadougou, Bamako, Lome, Niamey, Accra, Dakar * ''Group show'', Intemporel Gallery, Parigi * ''National Black Fine Art Show'', solo exhibition, Noël Gallery, New York 2004 * ''Sans Titre'', solo exhibition, Noël Gallery, Charlotte (U.S.A.) * ''Moi est un autre'', solo exhibition, Mam Gallery, Douala * ''Group show'',

McColl Center for Visual Art McColl Center (formerly McColl Center for Art + Innovation) is an artist residency and contemporary art space located at 721 North Tryon Street in Charlotte, North Carolina.
* Africa 24. LE MAG - Joël MPAH DOOH – Cameroun

* Manga, L. (2008). L'ivresse du papillon. 1st ed. Servoz: Edimontagne, pp. 86–99. * Pensa, Iolanda (Ed.) 2017. Public Art in Africa. Art et transformations urbaines à Douala /// Art and Urban Transformations in Douala. Genève: Metis Presses.

Biography

Expositions

See also