Roméo Mivekannin, born in 1986 in Bouaké, Côte d’Ivoire, practice consists of unique reinterpretations of art historical works in painting, as well as installations. He takes inspiration from archival material to expose the colonial gaze imposed over those underrepresented or unspoken (non-dits), basing his work on the “memory of history,” literally and figuratively.

Mivekannin’s oeuvre is deeply informed by two exhibitions he visited in Paris that left a mark on his career: “L’invention du sauvage” (Musée du Quai Branly, 2011, curated in part by Pascal Blanchard) and “Le modèle noir de Géricault à Matisse” (Musée d’Orsay, 2019.) Both shows led him to interrogate his personal history and the essentialization that resulted from the Western gaze on Africa and its representation in the Art History canon. His process entails observing a work of art and asking himself: what does the artist really show? What is the intention and context hidden behind what is evident to the eye?

Then, in a subversive act that he refers to as “visual irritation”, he reinterprets the original paintings or photographs and replaces the subjects’ faces with his own black-and-white portrait, looking directly at the viewer. This direct gaze transforms the viewers into active participants and reclaims agency for the figures once rendered as dominated subjects, exposing the power dynamics embedded within the works. His approach, rooted in an act of critical reappropriation, turns the artworks onto themselves to reconsider their legacy in a contemporary context as part of a collective healing process. His canvases, crafted from old bedsheets and infused with elixir baths inspired by voodoo rituals from Benin (where Mivekannin’s family is from), carry profound spiritual and ancestral resonance.