Guy Woueté
Guy Woueté: freedom installations
Guy Woueté grew up in Doubla, Cameroon's largest city, where he studied sculpture and painting. He later moved to Brussels and Paris, where he continued his studies. He currently divides his time between Doubla and Antwerp. A multimedia artist, he also researches the relationship between art and technology at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam. Woueté is inspired by contemporary social reality in Europe and Africa, creating sculptures, installations and photos focusing on themes such as oppression, migration, pollution, and alienation to break down conventional attitudes that nourish discrimination.
During his childhood in Doubla, Guy Woueté trained as a mechanic because his mother cautioned him "to think about his future". Every day, as he walked home from school on foot, he passed the work of a local sculptor, which fuelled his admiration and interest in the visual arts. A few years later, this same sculptor trained Guy Woueté to become an artist. After his first shows in 2005, he received the Thami Mnyele Award in 2006, named after South African artist and freedom fighter Thamsanqa (Thami) Mnyele (1948-1985), who was involved in the anti-apartheid politics of the African National Congress and the Black Consciousness Movement.
In line with Mnyele's idea of liberation, Guy Woueté feels that creating art is not an end "but an opportunity to take an honest look at and reflect on our era". The artist does this with installations and sculptures made from simple materials (rope, stuffed animals, totem poles, cages with PET bottles) and posed self-portraits with different types of prominently displayed vegetables. Each work contains painful and playful references to poverty, imprisonment, consumerism, environmental degradation or racial bias.
HW