Hervé Yamguen


Herve Yamguen is a Cameroonian painter and sculptor.
Autodidact, he launched himself in painting, sculpture and he discovered a passion for the writing which enables him to wonder about its daily live. He currently works on plays.
He grew in Douala where he lives and works in one of the most popular districts of the city, New Bell. It is this environment which nourishes the imaginary of Hervé whose plastic work turns around the face, the body and the place of it in the world.

Works

Herve Yamguen was born into a family with deeply rooted traditions, who initially refused to accept his choice to become an artist. From childhood, he was attracted by the way in which artists interpret reality in their works. He realizes that making art guides one out of ignorance and lets one wonder about the human being. He started painting at the age of 17 and fully embraces the profession of artist by the late 1980s, after refusing to enter the monastery. After that his family encouraged him to continue on his path of artist.
Self-taught, he learned by reading about art history, which led him to develop his singular vision of art. Subsequently, he received a year of training at École des Arts Décoratifs in Strasbourg, France. He has done many study and production residencies in Cameroon and abroad.
Hervé Yamguen is also known for his writing about the visual arts. He has made a few forays into photography, performance, installation and has regularly done stage designs for the theater. The themes present in his work are eroticism, the questioning of the human-plant-animal and bird. Through these themes, he tells the story of humans and invites one to look at life with wonder; the small details of daily life that represent the beauty of the world and make life more pleasurable. Yamguen is inspired by the work of several writers and artists who work on wonder, whimsy and imagination: Matisse, Picasso, Henri Michaud, and the surrealist poets. The artist wants to invite the public to reflect on his humanity in order to become better.
According to him, the reception of his work is not enthusiastic: either it is too risqué or inaccessible.
Hervé Yamguen is one of the members of the Cercle Kapsiki. As a member of the cercle, it took part in Scénographies Urbaines, in January 2003, a project born from the meeting of Cameroonian artists. The idea consists of a residence of artists from all over the world located in the popular district of New Bellin Douala: the project aimed at leading artists to express themselves and exchange with the inhabitants of the district of Douala whose reputation was not the best.
The stereotypes had to be broken to create new words. The communication had to be reinvented.
It is during the workshop in the district New Bell that the Kapsiki circle and the collective Skurk invited other artists from Cameroon, France, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Lebanon, to share with the district’s population details of their lives.
He exposed in 2003 a work at the Mam gallery within the framework of the project Pièce Unique, initiated by the French Cultural centre of Douala. He also published a long poem Le temps de la saison verte, in 1998. A new book is published by the French Cultural centre of Douala.
Recently inducted as a notable in the village of his father, he reconnects with the codes of the rituals and customs, while maintaining his posture of contemporary artist.
His work has been shown in various countries around the world. In France and Germany repeatedly and recently in Côte d'Ivoire and Senegal. Beside his work as a creative, Yamguen has served other functions in the art world. He taught fine arts at the secondary level. He was the artistic director of the three editions of the Marché des Arts Plastiques de Bali.

Publications