ART BRUSSELS: BRUSSELS | BELGIUM

For this edition of the fair, AFIKARIS presents a solo show by Jean David Nkot. Theatre of Bodies – Drama of Matter marks a decisive turning point in the artist’s practice, moving toward a three-dimensional realm where painting and sculpture merge in a realism grounded in both material and emotion. Yet, in his choice of subject, the artist remains faithful to his central concern: raising awareness of extractive practices and labor exploitation.

 

In the central piece, Nkot depicts laborers at rest, with the human figure remaining a constant focus of his exploration and interest. The theatricality of the compositions and the vivid intensity of the colors immerse us in the contemporary reality of agricultural labor in Cameroon, and, by extension, across Africa and the Global South. At the center of the canvas stands a woman, a symbol of the African land’s exploited fertility and of the invisible female laborers who sustain it.

 

The fusion of body and matter extends into Nkot’s ceramic sculptures, whose bluish patina evokes the passage of time. Their hues recall the cobalt buried underground, staining miners’ skin, while their forms echo ancient ceramics. The gestures of the busts suggest movement arrested mid-labor, the tool having vanished from their grasp.

 

In his portraits on jute canvas, Nkot captures the paradox of a childhood both vibrant and burdened, confronting viewers with questions of consumption, responsibility, and complicity in global inequalities. A recurring visual motif—a seal—symbolizes the connection between the local and the global.

 

 

--