Mbida Sollo William

I share my life between artistic creation and research.

My painting questions my relationship to the world.
Indeed, I am a Cameroonian artist born in Yaoundé.
I have been drawing and painting since the age of holding a pencil.

In my work, I am mainly inspired by the beliefs (social and religious) that I thought were true during my adolescence.

I am also inspired  by the French language and its turns of phrase, stories, myths.

When the images come to my mind, they become a kind of grammar on canvas that allows me to put my intentions into discourse.

Currently, I seek to enter the systems of African symbols and codification through masks. Indeed, African masks are designed to be used during social and religious ceremonies.

The moment the man wears the mask, the wearer is invested with the attributes of a divine and social force.

The mask then plays the role of intermediary between the Gods and men.

In reality, these masks represent energies or spirits that communicate with our subconscious.

These objects spiritually protect the African people and are also used for funeral rites.

I place them in strategic places to structure the surrounding energies to allow a social balance.

I am also inspired by Egypt and Antiquity because of the moments and their vision of life so evolved. Database.

Although my whole life has been spent in Europe, I have often felt like a tourist seeking answers to his own questions.

My belonging to the territory is embodied in my painting. In my paintings, the absence of perspective and shadows finds its origin in the raw light of Nsam, the city of my childhood in Cameroon. Impossible to see a perspective or a shadow because the density of inhabitants, the houses in a row and the absence of roads do not allow it.

It is also  what feeds my canvas directly on the texture, its colors, it also feeds an imagination that I work to unfold.

Psychic life is nourished by images, metaphors that are inscribed in us from our earliest years, as soon as the first stories are told to us.

I am always in search of realities that structure the human psyche, I also explore life stories to carefully analyze the links between the soul, the world, language and what is real.

​

-------------------------------------------------- -------

 

LORD PETO participated in the exhibitions of the Art et Miss gallery on the following theme:​

​

• December 2021: Small Formats