Internationally acclaimed visual artist Gérard Quenum, is considered one of the founding fathers of West African abstract figuration. A movement of which he has been at the forefront for past two decades.

Quenum, whose practice is based in Porto-Novo, Benin, West Africa, is a modest and quiet gentleman. Yet, his work frequently hauls front stage at major exhibitions in Paris, London and New York. Today, works by this seminal artist has  been permanently incorporated into the preeminent collections of leading art institutions, the likes of British Museum and Tate Modern in the UK, or Stanford University in the US, to name a few.

Instantly recognizable, the paintings by Gérard Quenum often feature chromatically pared down figures, evolving within abstracted vacuities. Although Quenum’s creative corpus investigates notions of gender, mass consumerism,  societal conundrums, death, grief and the afterlife, his minimalistic yet energetic canvases, extrapolate myriads of potential scenarios that unfold inside the viewer’s own mind.

Mesmerizing yet disconcerting, the paintings by Gérard Quenum, symbolize the reincarnation of life, through the whimsical tales of his native land and its deep seeded traditions and rich history, by way of which the artist masterfully peers into the future.

A true iconoclast, an intellectual, a luminary, a free thinker, a social activist and an  all around humanitarian, Quenum divises his practice as a beacon of hope, peace and resilience against the overbearing reign of imperialism, totalitarianism, colonialism, racism, and other abusive forms of power, like police brutality and military oppressions, still plaguing the history of Mankind, even more so in our current day and age.