Green Forest(2017),Watercolour and ink on paper，200 × 200 cm，Courtesy of the artist

Water as Gold(2017),Watercolour and ink on paper，200 × 204 cm，Courtesy of the artist

Barthélémy Toguo is an artist from Cameroon who later moved to Paris. He works with drawing, photography, sculpture, ceramics and performance. 

Toguo’s artistic repertoire is populated by imaginary scenes, narratives of magic and mythological elements combined with traditional cultural symbols associated with African traditional magic and rituals. At the same time, his work also reflects his deep commitments to current concerns regarding his country, Africa and the world as a whole. As such, his artistic language allows for contradictory ideas, mixed feelings, and multiple meanings to co-exist. Depictions of human bodies and forms from nature are also central to his work, expressed through female bodies sprouting like plant-forms or undefined organs, or a male body spiralling into an elephant trunk. While his drawing may initially appear unusual or entwined with strong cultural connotations, it also reveals the universality of human experience and emotions, such as notions of life and death, body and soul, fate and accident—forces and energies that affect each individual’s life.