Joël Mpah Dooh is one of the finest artists on the continent and enjoys international critical acclaim with his paintings and multi media works. His recent exhibition Rendez-vous was a definite highlight of the 2006 Dakar Biennale of African Contemporary Art in Senegal. He strongly featured in the Lines of Connections exhibition with William Kentridge, Kendell Geers and Samuel Fosso, organised by the MTN Art Foundation in 2001.

Joël Mpah Dooh lives and works in Douala, Cameroon, and studied fine arts in Amiens, France. He has been showing extensively in solo and group exhibitions in Cameroon, Austria, Senegal, France, Cuba, Lebanon, USA and Kenya.

Joel Mpah Dooh is preoccupied with art and the experiment in art. He is inspired by the tactile reality of his environment but is mostly an inner traveler ; He works on paper, canvas, corrugated iron and most recently perspex, mixing earth, colours, clay, packaging wood and chalk inscriptions and scratching. Such material conjures a somber atmosphere.

He explores the fragility of individual human identity and how it reinvents himself while moving and evolving in the city. He suggests that in the process, this delicate ‘self’ is taking control through conflict with society and the institutions and draws his own history and destiny in the light of other human connections and relationships.

Joël Mpah Dooh

Born in 1956. Lives and works in Douala, Cameroon

Selected exhibitions

2008

After taste, solo exhibition, Afronova Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa

Joburg scene, three-man show, Bag Factory, Johannesburg, South Africa

As you like it, group show, Johannesburg Art Fair, Sandton Convention Center, Johannesburg, South Africa

2007

Eclipse, solo exhibition, Maisons Follies, Maubeuge, France

Eclipse, solo exhibition, Fondation Jean Paul Blachère, Apt, France

Ba Mama, two man show with Goddy Leye, Bonendale, Douala, Cameroon

Pistes africaines, solo exhibition, Les Chantiers de la Lune, La Seyne sur Mer, France

2006

Just to say hello..., solo exhibition, Afronova Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa

Rendez-vous, solo exhibition, Dakar Biennale, Senegal

Rendez-vous, solo exhibition, Mam Gallery, Douala, Cameroon

Reves croisees, group show, Ateliers des Tanneurs, Brussels, Belgium

2005

Sans Titre, solo exhibition, Théâtre de la ville en bois, La Rochelle, France

Les galeries plastiques itinérantes, Ouagadougou/ Bamako/ Lome/ Niamey/ Accra/ Dakar

Group show, Intemporel Gallery, Paris, France

National Black Fine Art Show, solo exhibition, Noel Gallery, New York, USA

2004

Sans Titre, solo exhibition, Noël Gallery, Charlotte, USA

Moi est un autre, solo exhibition, Mam Gallery, Douala, Cameroon

Group show, McColl Center for visual arts, Charlotte, USA

Group show, Dakar Biennale, Atiss Gallery, Dakar, Senegal

Animismes, group show, DaVinci Gallery, Nice, France

2003

Sans Titre, solo exhibition, Maison Française de Nairobi, Kenya

Recto-Verso, solo exhibition, Mam Gallery, Douala, Cameroon

Scénographie Urbaine, group show, Mam Gallery, Douala, Cameroon

2002

Djé Mo-Yé, solo exhibition, Mam Gallery, Douala, Cameroon Group show, Dakar Biennale, Atiss Gallery, Dakar, Senegal

2001

Voyage a travers le rêve et la mémoire, solo exhibition, National Museum, Yaounde, Cameroon

Lines of Connection, group show, Mam Gallery, Douala, Cameroon

2000

Group show, 7th Havana Biennale, Havana, Cuba

L’Afrique a Jour, Ten years of Dakar Biennale, group show, Lille, France

1999

Sans Titre, solo exhibition, Mam Gallery, Douala, Cameroon

1998

Couleurs du Cameroun, solo exhibition, Le Nautilus, Nantes, France

Nanga Def, solo exhibition, Musée d’Art Africain de l’IFAN, Dakar, Senegal

1997

Les couleurs de la différence, two-man show, Mam Gallery, Douala, Cameroon