Marc Padeu Cameroon, 1990

Marc Padeu was born in Melong (Cameroon) in 1990. The fundamental content of Marc Padeu's work is the sacred: not because of this, however, can his work be called religious. Images of madonnas, saints, or references to the deposition of Christ or the annunciation, become a pretext for portraying the vicissitudes of human kind. Religious icons are partly portrayed in contemporary clothing, and the splendid legion of Renaissance works is Africanised in the fabrics of the robes and the colour of the characters' skin. From the ancient, the artist finds an ideal humanity, the absolute form of an existence that in the present is limited and relative. His experimental evolution leads him to deal with themes of everyday life with a clear reference to the plastic poses of the great paintings of the past.