Alida Ymélé

Alida Ymélé (1994) is a Cameroonian artist born in Dschang in the West of Cameroon. She started to
create at a very young age against the advice of her family. Her first ambition was to go into fashion
design to ensure a manual practice without knowing the existence of a school of Fine Arts.
Determined, she entered the Institute of Fine Arts of Nkongsamba from which she graduated with a
master's degree in 2019.Alida has been working in the studio of Jean-David Nkot since 2017. 

Like many artists of this generation, she has also gone through the teachings and encouragement of
renowned artists such as Barthélémy Toguo, Jean Jacques Kanté, Salifou Lindou, or the post-master
of Hervé Youmbi. Her main mentor, Jean-David, made her realize that gender is not an issue in the
studio, only work, passion and determination count. 

The universe of Alida Ymélé questions the permanent injustices that housekeepers experience. For
her, her invisibilized women are heroines that it is necessary to put forward, to rehumanize. Indeed,
she cannot but notice the violence with which these people are treated. This fight comes to her from
her early childhood when she can read her mother's profession of housewife on her birth certificate,
while society teaches her that this work does not really exist, is worth nothing. However, it is her
mother who supports her until 2011. Alida Ymélé began by working on the tragedies of immigration,
where women find themselves in situations close to slavery.