"My traditional culture constitutes for me a true richness and my main source of inspiration which, in my creations, will merge with that which opens to me but also which is imposed by means such as globalization or immigration creating a kind of palace of memory."
Born in Yaoundé in 1992, Franck Kemkeng Noah is a multidimensional artist. He graduated with a Master’s degree in Fine Arts from the Institut des Beaux-Arts de Foumban. In 2017, he moves to Amiens, France and follows a second Master in Artistic Research. Then, he starts painting on abandoned carpets. The discarded household objects he finds on the streets become the new support for a series of works that serve as narrative points in the history of migrations.His work has been selected by the Musée de Quai Branly for a collective exhibition in April 2022. His art has recently been featured in numerous exhibitions, including in Didier Claes gallery in Bruxelles, Belgium in Art’Course and Fondation Blachère in France. He also participated in 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair Marrakech in 2020.
Franck Kemkeng Noah's experimental approach is mainly characterized by the use of paintings, sculptures, and interactive performances. His mixed productions offer a vibrant perspective on the idea of interculturalism, identity, and civilization. For the artist, culture is the very possibility of creating, renewing and sharing values. The confrontation with the pieces born from this experience encourages personal questioning about oneself, the other and about our cultural nature.
Franck Kemkeng Noah draws his inspiration from the fusion of cultures and the creation of “memory palaces”. The idea of the fusion between his traditional Bamileke origins and other cultures for the creation of a new self is inspired by Oswald de Andrade’s “Manifesto of the Anthropophagus” published in 1928. The author is a Brazilian writer and a key figure in the cultural movement of Brazilian Modernist.