When we meet Jean David Nkot at his studio in the Nkongmondo neighbourhood in Douala, he is standing over a huge canvas, so intensely focused that we do not interrupt him.
From time to time, he steps back, assesses the work, and changes the brushes in his hands, delicately stroking the canvas with different colours-adding some white and then some purple.
The painting depicts four women extracting ore from the earth using a sieve. The sketch is complete; what remains is bringing it to life with colours.
"I haven't named it yet; I do that only when I'm done with the work. But here, I am focusing on the exploitation in mineral extraction. In this work, we have a group of women extracting ore," he said. "That's a way to show their working condition."
Nkot's paintings have always told the story of the human condition. From 2014 to 2020, his work largely focused on the issue of migration. Today, he's exploring how human bodies are experiencing violence in contemporary society. He does this through scenes showing forced prostitution, child labour, and mine labourers, among others.
"I want to show how in this society, human bodies are used for exploitation by the system, in total indifference," he said. Another signature in Nkot's works is a map on the background of every piece. The characters are often a little transparent, as if watermarked on the canvass so that the background map can be seen.
"This is just to remind the viewer that violence and exploitation which affects human beings, always occur in a specific environment, in a specific place," he said.
Last year, Nkot was selected to be part of the trio of African artists called upon to create a painting that was launched into space in December. The work adorned the nose cone of the Ariane rocket, the European heavy-lift space launch vehicle that transported the first of the next-generation Meteosat Third Generation (MTG) Earth observation satellites into space.
The work adorning the rocket was named 'Memory of Today, Memory of Tomorrow' and was unveiled in Paris in June 2022 during the 1-54 African Contemporary Art Fair. The artwork is a collective creation between Nkot and the Congolese artists Michel Ekéba and Géraldine Tobé.
In recent years, his works have been exhibited in several countries, including Cameroon, Chad, Congo, South Africa, Senegal, Morocco, France, the United Kingdom and the United States. Born in 1989 in Douala, where he lives and works, Nkot is considered one of the most promising figures of the African contemporary art scene.
In July 2021, he had a particularly successful exhibition in Paris at the Afikaris Gallery.
"It is a great success. Half of his works were sold on the first day of the opening," Florian Azzopardi, Nkot's gallerist, said to the French magazine, Le Point.
"Many buyers even bought from a distance, from the south of France, but also from the Netherlands, Great Britain, Belgium and the United States. And if we had some fears about the very large formats, all have gone."
Nkot says it's not him who chose to be an artist, but rather art chose him. He, however, admits the path was never an easy one. He once envisaged dropping everything, crossing the Mediterranean Sea and reaching Europe shores as a migrant.
"There are certainly a lot of artists who are more gifted than me, but for one reason or another, they are not out there. So I know that it also takes a lot of luck to succeed in an artistic career."
In his teenage years, he attended the Institute of Artistic Training of Mbalmayo in south Cameroon. Upon graduation, Nkot moved to the West region, where he attended the Fine Art Institute of Foumban and obtained a Bachelor of Fine Arts.
In 2017, he was among seven artists invited to participate in the "Moving Frontiers – Do and undo" initiative created by the École Nationale Supérieure D'arts of Paris-Cergy in France and the Doual'Art contemporary art development centre in Cameroon. The project was an experimental platform for artistic research, which proposed to question borders and territories and make room for current issues on Africa, migration, and colonial and postcolonial questions.
The platform opened doors for Nkot in the international scene. He soon after had his first solo exhibitions in the Doual'Art space. In 2021, he had his first solo exhibition at Afikaris, a newly founded gallery in Paris, with tremendous success. He also entered the London art scene through Jack Bell Gallery, which exhibited his works at the 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair in London, New York and Paris.
One of Nkot's mentors, Hervé Youmbi, a renowned Cameroonian contemporary artist, is confident Nkot is just beginning to rise.
"He is an artist with a recent and very promising career. His career really began six years ago, but he is already exporting himself very well outside Cameroon and outside Africa," he said.
"He has exhibited at the Dakar Biennial, which is the main contemporary art event in Africa, and twice in Paris with his gallery Afikaris. He is currently exhibiting in South Africa. Today he is one of the great figures of African and international contemporary art."
As we finish the interview, he looks at a canvas his assistant is painting. Satisfied with what he sees, he casts his eye on his unfinished one:
"I intend to be done with the characters this evening," he says, walking back to his canvas.