Cécicle Fakhoury Gallery in Paris presents “Apparitions”, a new group show within its walls. Until September 14, Assoukrou Aké, Dalila Dalléas Bouzar, Elladj Lincy Deloumeaux, François-Xavier Gbré, Jess Atieno, Marie-Claire Messouma Manlanbien and Roméo Mivekannin take over the gallery with new works of art.
“Apparitions” opens a visual portal to new horizons. Works emerge, populated by mysterious, bewitching characters, each seeking to captivate and influence the viewer’s gaze. The viewer finds himself drawn in by these singular figures, invited to take a fresh look at the world around him. Each of these artists’ creations evokes the idea of appearance and emergence, while exploring feelings, bodies and spirituality.
Assoukrou Aké, a multi-disciplinary artist, follows in the footsteps of Africa’s social, medical and political history. His artistic practice is nourished by personal narratives, oscillating between revelations and silences, while highlighting cultural dualities. Through his art, he succeeds in conveying emotions of rare intensity, blending drama, humor and poetry, and lending a unique sensitivity to his works. In “Apparitions”, Assoukrou Aké presents a recent series of works ranging from installations and sculptures to a variety of plastic forms, in perfect continuity with his rich, multi-faceted artistic approach.
Questioning the status of the painter, art history and representation as a tool of power, Dalila Dalléas Bouzar draws on her dual culture to offer fresh perspectives on the image, the object and the sacred, while remaining attentive to cultural dissonance. From this singular database, she questions the hegemony of Western representations in art history. The contemporary artist draws on Algerian memory to explore the forms of a history of violence, to which her work seeks to respond.
Elladj Lincy Deloumeaux offers a window onto interior spaces, through a pictorial narrative in which the anecdotes of a personal history and the chronicles of a plural world are delicately interwoven. Her characters, frozen in a moment of pause and introspection, take us into an intimate space, often imbued with nostalgia. During his travels, the disruptive experience of a new everyday language and a place both unknown and familiar, as well as the long hours of travel, create a space where identity can be freely reinvented, in other forms and on its own terms.
François-Xavier Gbré uses the language of architecture and landscape as witnesses to memory and social change. Nurtured by his travels, his investigations as a photographer-walker give rise to encounters with a hybrid nature in constant evolution, in territories marked by history and current events. His photographs always reveal a passage, a trace, an unexpected object, all contained within carefully structured compositions.
In “Apparitions”, Jess Atieno pursues an intimate quest for home. For several years, the artist has been immersed in exploring notions of place, those physical and psychic spaces that we integrate as components of our identity. Archival images, postcards, documents and maps, often present as watermarks, illuminate the complex processes of dispossession – of identities, lands and images – orchestrated during the colonial era.
As a healer and poetic storyteller, Marie-Claire Messouma Manlanbien invites the public to discover new forms, materials and signs, in the spirit of healing art. Like labyrinths or rebus, her works weave new topographies that explore themes of femininity, identity and the body, at the crossroads of her Caribbean and West African heritage.
In “Apparitions”, Roméo Mivekannin takes us to the crossroads of inherited tradition and the contemporary world. He reconciles his creations with an ancestral temporality, elaborating his own rituals echoing the voodoo cosmology inherent in Benin. Penetrating the boundaries between painting, sculpture and installation, the Ivorian artist deploys a daring multidisciplinary universe. Roméo Mivekannin explores materials with the aim of overturning the established boundaries between disciplines, in order to achieve his own unique act of formal and symbolic disruption.
Through the contributions of Assoukrou Aké, Dalila Dalléas Bouzar, Elladj Lincy Deloumeaux, François-Xavier Gbré, Jess Atieno, Marie-Claire Messouma Manlanbien and Roméo Mivekannin, this exhibition highlights the richness of contemporary African artistic voices. Each of these artists explores diverse themes such as identity, memory and culture, proposing a vibrant dialogue between tradition and modernity. Together, they bear witness to the power of art as a means of reflection, healing and reinvention. This multidisciplinary exploration reminds us that art is not only a form of expression, but also a means of discovery, healing and reconciliation with oneself and others.
