Born in 1986 in Bouaké (Ivory Coast), Roméo Mivekannin lives and works between Toulouse (France) and Cotonou (Benin).
After training as a cabinetmaker and studying art history, Roméo Mivekannin chose to enter the Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de Toulouse. In parallel to his studies, he developed a personal work of plastic creation, and experimented with several mediums, from sculpture to painting. Following his studies, he devoted himself to his work as a visual artist while beginning a thesis on the history of art, sociology and architecture.
At the crossroads of inherited tradition and the contemporary world, Roméo Mivekannin integrates his creations within an ancestral temporality, making his own rituals, echoing the voodoo cosmology, very present in Benin. Between painting, sculpture and installation, his universe is multidisciplinary and ambitious. The artist plays with materials and seeks to upset the established boundaries between disciplines, in order to operate both formally and symbolically an act of break-in that is unique to him.
With strength and subtlety, the artist unravels the threads of our confinement a little more each time, and thus questions our collective and intimate heritage. The artist’s works propose a form of resistance strategy that mixes emotion with a critical eye.
Recent exhibitions: 1-54 NY (New-York, 2023), Paris + Basel (Paris, 2022); Effractions, Galerie Cécile Fakhoury (Abidjan, 2022); FITE, Musée Bargoin (Clermont-Ferrand, 2022); Picasso Remix, Biennale de Dakar, Dakar (Senegal, 2022); Zoos humains, Africa Museum, Tervuren (Belgium, 2021); Re-création, Fondation Blachère (France, 2021); Hosties Noires, Galerie Cécile Fakhoury, Dakar (Senegal, 2021); 1-54 Paris, Christie’s, Paris (France, 2021 and 2022); Les Âmes du peuple noir, Galerie Cécile Fakhoury, Abidjan (Côte d’Ivoire, 2020)