Cameroonian painter Marc Padeu says that being an African artist means "being the heir to an extraordinarily rich history." But he also says it can mean "living and working on a continent where artistic infrastructure is virtually nonexistent."
Padeu's work often takes inspiration from religious paintings from the European Renaissance — but reimagines them, depicting people in Cameroon's cocoa plantations. London gallery Larkin Durey is currently holding an exhibition of Padeu's latest work.
London gallery Larkin Durey.
Oliver Durey, the gallery's director, said: "Mark's work is timeless. His visual style is simultaneously very contemporary but also deeply rooted in that old tradition — so there is something extremely fresh about it."
Padeu is from Bafang in the West Region of Cameroon and is part of the Bamileké ethnic group. The 36-year-old now lives in Yaoundé, the country's political capital. In an interview with NPR, Padeu explained his art — and what inspires him.
Can you talk about why you meld classic Western paintings with African scenes?
I wouldn't say that I'm trying to fuse Western painting with African scenes. For me, it's more a question of placing images that everyone recognizes within a setting that is familiar to me. I grew up in Cameroon, surrounded by plantations, villages and people who make their living from the land. That's the world I know best, so it's only natural that this is the setting in which I want to tell these stories.
At one point, I asked myself why certain images seemed to belong exclusively to Europe. Why should the Nativity, the Last Supper or Christ in Gethsemane always be depicted with the same faces and the same landscapes? Yet what they convey goes far beyond any particular place or era. They speak of love, sacrifice, fear, hope, family. These are profoundly human, universal experiences.
How did you become an artist?
It's certainly down to genetics, first and foremost. My mother is a fashion designer. She doesn't work much any more, but when I was younger, I used to see her fashion sketchbooks. So I inherited this talent from my mother. I was already drawing a lot at primary school and then at secondary school. I was the one who often helped teachers draw their demonstration sketches on the blackboard in front of my classmates. This often earned me a certain reputation at the various schools I attended.
Later on, I went on to study at the school of fine arts. I must say the timing was perfect in that respect. The very year I passed my A-levels, the Cameroonian government opened the country's very first art schools. So I'm part of the very first ever intake of graduates from that school. It was a very traditional course, based mainly on the study of art history.
Is there one artist who inspired you most?
The African American painter Kerry James Marshall. Marshall was a significant discovery for me, not because I wanted to paint like him, but because he showed me that it was possible to reestablish Black bodies at the heart of the great tradition of painting. He never merely added Black figures to an art history that had already been written; he demonstrated that they were an integral part of it.
I do think, however, that our approaches subsequently take different directions. He is very interested in the social and political history of African American communities. My work is more permeated by philosophical and spiritual questions. I explore the major themes of existence: birth, sacrifice, death, hope, promise by embodying them in scenes from everyday life in Cameroon.
Is it right that you used to be a fresco painter in a church?
That's right. I created a few murals in the churches of Nkongsamba, where I was studying at the school of fine arts. At first, it was just a part-time job to earn a bit of money. But the murals were so successful that I was very quickly inundated with commissions, mainly of religious murals. The churches commissioned me to paint scenes inspired by the Bible: episodes from the life of Christ, the Virgin Mary, the various apostles, angels and certain saints.
One evening, whilst I was still painting on the scaffolding inside the town's grand cathedral, a few women from a prayer group entered the church and prostrated themselves before the still-unfinished mural. It gave me a very strange feeling. But above all, it was at that moment that I realized the power that images and representations can have.
I have read that you take inspiration from religious paintings from Europe, especially from the Renaissance era.
Through constantly depicting these religious images, I began to take a deeper interest in them. I remember one in particular: The Coronation of the Virgin by Diego Velázquez. This painting, which I consider a masterpiece of composition, fascinated me to such an extent that I created my own reinterpretation, which I would call The Blue Virgin. The same is true of Caravaggio's The Incredulity of Saint Thomas, which I reinterpreted as The Blue Man of Njombé.
Can you tell us a bit more about The Blue Virgin — with its depiction of a woman whose skin and clothing is blue?
The Blue Virgin is one of the first works in which I sought to create a dialogue between Christian iconography and my own visual world. I depict a young African woman striking the serene, frontal pose of Renaissance Madonnas. Inspired by Diego Velázquez's The Coronation of the Virgin, this is not a Virgin in the religious or devotional sense. Rather, she is a symbolic figure. She embodies motherhood, promise and a form of silent presence. By giving her the features of a young Cameroonian woman, I wanted to show that these foundational figures of art history can be reinvented through other faces, other stories and other places.
The luminous skull resting on the figure's lap is undoubtedly the most important element in the painting. It refers to the memento mori [Latin for "remember you must die"] tradition, which features prominently in Western painting. In Christian iconography, the Virgin is often associated with the promise of life; here, that promise is set against the awareness of death. The color blue was not chosen here solely because it is traditionally the color of the Virgin Mary. It creates a sense of distance from reality. It distances the figure from the portrait, bringing it closer to the symbolic.
Can you explain how religion influences your work? Are you religious yourself?
My relationship with religion did not begin with the frescoes in churches. For as long as I can remember, my family has always been very religious. My mother is without a doubt the most devout person I know on this earth. This was already the case with my grandparents before her. My grandfather was a catechist [a teacher in the church]. However, I grew up caught between two spiritual traditions. My mother's family are very devout Catholics. My father's family, on the other hand, are not at all. They are animists [people who believe that animals, plants and various objects possess a spiritual essence] deeply rooted in the Bamiléké spiritual tradition. My father was, in fact, a member of a council that assists the village chief in making decisions for the community. So I have always navigated between these two spiritual traditions, as have most other Africans, for that matter.
How did you get the idea of putting classical figures in a clearly African setting — and not a glamorous setting but a setting of people who farm for a living, which is hard work?
My aim here is not to rewrite the history of painting. Over the years I have spent studying classical painting, I very quickly realized that the major themes it explores — namely birth, death, sacrifice, promise, hope and so on — are by no means exclusively European. They are quite simply human and can therefore be embodied by Africans, and of course by Cameroonians.
Having grown up in an environment where working the land plays a central role, it therefore seemed entirely natural to me to place at the heart of my work these men, women and children whom I know well, and with whom I once shared the grueling daily life of the plantation. The idea is to portray them with the same nobility and dignity as the figures of the great masters. So, indirectly, it is my own story that I am telling. It is myself that I am painting.
Your paintings feel very alive, like the people in them might move at any moment. Do you work from photographs or real life models?
My way of working is rather unusual — it's very personal. In fact, a painting can take several months, or even much longer, to take shape in my mind before I even begin to paint. I live with that image for a while. I think about it constantly, I transform it in my mind, I imagine different compositions until everything starts to fall into place.
Once this vision becomes clearer, I look for people who can bring it to life. Sometimes these are close friends or family members, sometimes acquaintances and sometimes people I meet over time. I don't work with professional models. I organize photo shoots, but I don't necessarily ask them to strike a specific pose. Although nothing is left to chance, I prefer to suggest a situation or an emotion and let them express themselves naturally in front of the camera.
These photographs form my raw material. I sometimes take dozens, or even more, for a single painting. The figures are often photographed separately, at different times, sometimes several months apart. Then, in my studio, I reconstruct the scene entirely from scratch. I reposition the bodies, alter the gazes, the lighting, the colors and the proportions. A final composition may thus bring together references taken at moments far apart in time.
I like to let an image mature for a long time before bringing it to life on the canvas. It is often in this waiting that the work finds its true purpose.
What does it mean to be a Cameroonian artist — an African artist — in 2026?
That's an excellent question. Being a Cameroonian or African artist in 2026 means, first and foremost, living and working on a continent where artistic infrastructure is virtually non-existent. We're talking here about sub-Saharan Africa. This means that recognition very often comes from outside the continent. We find ourselves in a kind of paradox: We're more visible in London, Berlin, Paris or New York than in Douala, Abidjan or Lagos. As African and Cameroonian artists, our careers therefore depend on an international ecosystem whose rules and contours we don't always fully understand.
However, being an African artist, a Cameroonian artist, also means being the heir to an extraordinarily rich history. We come from great kingdoms, often with recognized artistic traditions. Kingdoms that have weathered major historical and painful events, namely: the various slave trades, colonization, the struggles for independence, the diversity of languages and the coexistence of ancestral practices with monotheistic religions imported from the West. All this heritage that already exists within us is very often reflected in the works we create.
However, we do not remain prisoners of this history. We do not paint to represent Africa or Cameroon to the world but to reveal the world from the perspective of Cameroon, of Africa.
What advice do you have for other aspiring African artists?
First and foremost, I would tell them not to try to be "African artists" but simply to become artists. Much like a politician, one's ethnic or geographical background cannot be a political platform. One's background is therefore merely a starting point for a broader openness to the world.
I would encourage them to broaden their horizons further. To study their personal history and their origins in depth. To learn about the history of art and to take a serious interest in philosophy.
I'd also tell them not to be afraid of time. These days, everything pushes us to produce quickly, to be visible straight away. Personally, I don't produce more than ten paintings a year, sometimes even fewer than seven. That suits me just fine. I'm constantly quite aware that I'll be doing this all my life, so that drives me to find a creative rhythm that I can easily sustain, given the high standards it demands over the very long term.
Finally, I'd remind them that art isn't just a profession, but a way of being, of existing in the world.
Are you ever asked if you are just imitating the great masters? Or trivializing these images by putting them in a cocoa plantation?
To be honest, I have never asked myself the question in those terms. All artists draw inspiration from those who came before them. Manet drew inspiration from Titian, Picasso from Velázquez and so did Francis Bacon. For my part, I enter into a dialogue with these images because they form part of our shared heritage. I do not seek to copy them but to extend them through my own perspective.
As for the idea that I might trivialize these works by transposing them into a cocoa plantation, I actually believe quite the opposite. Biblical stories feature ordinary people: fishermen, shepherds, craftsmen. They do not take place in extraordinary settings but at the heart of everyday life. Ultimately, what could be more natural than to bring them back to life today amongst the men and women who work the land? For me, there is something profoundly noble in these ordinary gestures.
In a world where prejudice sadly still flourishes, have you run into discrimination?
In all honesty, I don't recall ever having personally been the victim of any form of discrimination. Perhaps I haven't been paying close enough attention to have noticed it? Or perhaps philosophy really does help me a great deal in this regard. However, I think it would be very naïve to say that prejudice does not exist in the art world. It can be present there just as it is in other areas of life. However, it is essential not to build one's career around it. If one makes prejudice the main subject of one's work or narrative, one gives it a prominence it does not deserve.
I therefore believe that the best response to discrimination is not to confront it head-on or to deny it but rather to produce works that defy all the categories into which people might seek to pigeonhole them.
What is your dream for your work, and what would you like people to think when they see it?
My professional dream hasn't changed much since the days when I used to paint murals in churches. I simply hope that my work reaches as many people as possible around the world.
You know, the world is in a really difficult state. With all these conflicts and natural disasters, as an artist, I feel a humble duty to do my bit for a happier world. George Bernard Shaw said: "Without art, the brutality of reality would make the world unbearable."
Marc Padeu: Memento Vivere is on view at the Larkin Durey gallery in London until August 14. The gallery regularly exhibits Padeu's work.
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