Gallery selection: Jean David Nkot at Afikaris

To grasp everything Jean David Nkot inscribes and encrypts in his paintings and sculptures, one needs to look closely. In the background of what at first appear to be beautiful group portraits of laughing young women, the barely visible ghosts of photos appear, showing work on cocoa and coffee plantations, one of the main resources of Cameroon, the artist's native country. In front of these workers are spread the beans and grains they must sort before being processed by industry. These large canvases are accompanied by naked ceramic figures in a raw blue. We quickly realize that the bodies are injured and that this blue is that of cobalt: an allusion to the country's mining activities. In the last room, Nkot deploys an installation featuring these blue busts on their plinths and, in glass jars, imitations of mineral samples: silver, copper, lithium, platinum, etc. These are extracted by the miners, often illegal, with no regard for their lives. The ground is covered with sandy earth and empty pouches are scattered around it: the ones from which these miners drink the adulterated alcohol they consume to work entire days without eating. In the corridor preceding this room, portraits hang. They are skillfully painted, but on frayed and torn burlap. Thus, Nkot's desire for realism is evident even in the choice of his materials. Philippe Dagen