A self-taught artist, Salifou Lindou was born in Foumban, Cameroon, but lives and works in Douala. He is part of the former generations of artists in Cameroon who now teach the new generation. In 1998, he co-founded the Kapsiki Circle to introduce the arts in Douala by organizing exhibitions, projects, and residencies.
While Salifou Lindou started his career mainly creating installations, sculptures, and mixed collages on canvas, he has been working with pastels on paper for a few years now. His pastels emerge from an energetic and spontaneous tangle of lines and strokes. When the artist deals with topical issues, he always illustrates the passion and desire to live in opposition to the vulnerability of the body. He puts forward the duality of human beings: between strength and weakness, immobility and movement, peace and chaos.
On paper and on canvas, Lindou explores the complexity of human beings through scenes of daily life, fed with references to legends and classics within modern painting. From internal fights to TV debates, going through political instability that leads to an exodus, Lindou's work talks about and starts from daily life. It is both introspective and inspired by his observation of society.
In 2022, Lindou celebrated the 30th anniversary of his career. However, it is his participation in the 1-54 London art fair in 2020 with AFIKARIS Gallery that truly marked his recognition on the international art scene. Since then, his work has been featured in numerous international fairs, such as Art Paris (France), Investec Cape Town (South Africa), and 1-54 New York (USA). It has also been part of exhibitions in institutions, including the National Museum of Yaounde (Cameroon), Institut des Cultures de l’Islam (France), and Art Hub Copenhagen (Denmark). Finally, Lindou represented Cameroon at the Venice Biennale (2022), and he recently had his first solo institutional exhibition in Europe at the Ettore Fico Museum in Turin, Italy (2024).
I had the pleasure and honor of asking Salifou how he summarizes his art creation in one sentence, how he envisions the progress of young African artists in the art world, and so much more.
