Born in 1975 in Kétao, Togo, Sadikou Oukpedjo lives and works in Abidjan, Ivory Coast.
His work features half-human, half-animal characters that question the notions of origin and heritage for African peoples. For Sadikou Oukpedjo, tales, cosmogony, rites and witchcraft are all attempts and tools created by man to find his place in the world and learn to know himself. By exploring the ambiguous relationship between man and his animality, he questions our awareness of the cruelty of human relationships, in Africa and in the world.
His work is driven by a constant and profound questioning of our humanity, with regard to our animality. Sadikou Oukpedjo seeks to understand the violence of history in West Africa’s past. The invisible and its power, the unknown and the hidden appear as a red thread, inscribing themselves in the exploration of human consciousness as a single quest that runs through the evolution of his plastic research.
Trained in the studio of the Togolese artist Paul Ahyi, a major figure of West African modernity, Sadikou Oukpedjo is deeply involved in the history of African forms. He mainly practises wood sculpture. After living in Bamako, he moved to Abidjan in 2013 where he mainly devotes himself to painting, drawing and sculpture, while experimenting with pastel, chalk, pigments and ceramics.
Recent exhibitions: Mémoires contemporaines d’un continent (Galerie Cécile Fakhoury, Paris, 2022); Stasis (Galerie Cécile Fakhoury, Dakar, 2020); 1-54 Marrakech (Morocco, 2020); Kubatana (Vestfossen Kunstlaboratorium, Norway, 2019); Silentium (Galerie Cécile Fakhoury - Abidjan, 2019) ; Mutation (Cité internationale des arts de Paris, 2018); Les Fantômes de l’Afrique (collaboration with Vincent Michéa, Galerie Cécile Fakhoury - Dakar, 2018); Des Hommes et des Totems (Galerie Le Manège, Dakar, 2018)
Collections (selection): Centre Pompidou, Paris, France; Mohammed VI Museum, Rabat, Morocco; Tiroche DeLeon Collection, Jaffa, Israel; Fondation Blachère, Apt, France