Wayo meeting, Circa 2024

Rackel Messe a bidias  

Messe Bidias Rackel is a contemporary Cameroonian painter who lives in France, near Geneva. He began drawing and painting at a young age, with art quickly becoming his preferred means of expressing his emotions and opinions.

Self-taught, he mainly creates large format acrylic canvases. Favoring figurative effects, his art is neo-expressionist, drawing inspiration from contemporary art while anchoring itself in the primitive African style. Although his artistic work is very personal, his use of erratic writing and abstract forms, depicting ancient African figures and symbols, is sometimes compared to Basquiat's paintings.

Expressing oneself through art was a vocation: Growing up in a socio-political context where opinions are often censored, his paintings are a way of building a free world, of condemning what he despises and of reclaiming his aspiration to a peaceful future. Through the insertion of key words, his paintings deal with issues such as the dysfunction of the political elite or the indoctrination of populations by religious movements. His art also deals with the social inequalities generated by authoritarian regimes. It critically documents the great suffering that these inequalities cause for the African population, in particular the wandering of street children, the daily difficulties that people in the slums face or the recourse of women to prostitution as a means of survival.

Combining African heritage with artistic movements such as cubism, surrealism and pop art, his paintings are a message of hope and a testament to the beauty that surrounds us, even in the most difficult environments. He thus depicts the sappers, the mystical incarnation of a Congolese society in full turmoil. Using pop colors, he places his characters in captivating settings full of depth, these often reproducing patterns from Wax, a famous African fabric.

Messe has exhibited his work in France, Belgium, the United States, Cameroon, Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Instagram: @MESSE_BIDIAS - Facebook: MESSE BIDIAS