Jack Bell Gallery is pleased to present a new body of paintings on canvas by contemporary artist Jean David Nkot. In his fourth solo exhibition with the gallery, Nkot continues to address themes surrounding trans-African migration. His works combine detailed portraits with layers of complex cartographic information.
Jean-David Nkot draws up a sensual, realistic and wandering mapping of all these human beings led to the unknown by the dramatic situations in their native lands. He draws on the memory of these uprooted people to build a powerful work, filled with emotion and not without poetry for paying tribute to them and testifying. By putting a face on all these exiled persons he restores their dignity and reminds us that the world history has been made of exiles, of migrations, of tragedies, of sufferings but also of hope. In doing so his painting carries within itself some questionings about our societies, about their abilities to resolve conflicts, to face environmental and economic challenges. This artistic commitment gives rise to striking paintings that place humanity at the heart of his aesthetic choices.
– Floréal Duran
Jean-David Nkot was born in 1985 in Douala (Cameroon) where he lives and works. In 2010, he obtained a BAC in painting at the Mbalmayo Institute of Artistic Training (IFA) before joining the Institute of Fine Arts Foumban, where he also obtained a degree in drawing/painting. In 2017 he joined the Post Master “Moving Frontiers” organized by the National School of Arts of Paris-Cergy (France) on the theme of borders.
NKot is preoccupied with the human condition, violence, and the indifference and passivity of the international community and governments on the situation of victims around the world. He is also inspired by the topic of immigration, bodies and territories are structuring his artistic approach. Giant postage stamps, which are omnipresent in his universe, interrogate and shake consciences by exploring and exposing faces submerged by inscriptions of war weapons names. Like a postage stamp, their vocation is to affranchise these victims. The recent introduction of cartographies in his work are representing the complicity of the world and the violence of its indifference, as well as questioning the role of bodies in society. Far from focusing the attention of his admirers on the identity of his personages, Jean-David Nkot highlights the expression of the turmoil inhabiting “his” characters in the manner of Zhang Dali, Francis Bacon and Jenny Saville.
Recent exhibitions include the Cameroon National Museum, Yaoundé, curated by Simon Njami.
The exhibition runs until 1 October 2021 at Jack Bell Gallery London.
