Beninese Style

Africa is known for its bold, unapologetic use of colour. Stories are told in pigments, tones and hues; a kaleidoscope as diverse as the cultures and peoples of the continent. For the initiative Colours of Africa, a collaborative project with Google Arts & Culture, we asked 60 African creatives to capture the unique spirit of their country in a colour which represents home to them.

The projects they have created are personal and distinct stories of Africa, put into images, videos, texts and illustrations. Each artist has also attempted to articulate what being African means to their identity and view of the world.

colour: Joyeuse Jaune ( Joyful Yellow )

Country: Benin

Artwork Rationale

Welcome to the Grand-Popo painting salon!
As part of the Colours of Africa online exhibition, the Grand-Popo Painting Salon is pleased to present this painting, which represents Africa in general and African women in particular.

The painting describes the natural beauty of an African woman from a socio-cultural perspective. The colours used on this painting are basically yellow and black. The choice of these colours is explained by what these colours represent.

No colour is more joyful than yellow. The colour of the sun, celebration and joy. It brightens up the universe and makes it shine. Just like the sun, whose rays support life on earth, yellow is the colour of life and movement. Yellow is associated with power, the power embodied by the African woman. We remember above all that yellow represents the colour of openness and social contact: it is associated with friendship and fraternity as well as knowledge.
Next came the colour black.

Of course black is black, a sign of no more hope! But black is not just synonymous with the blackness of the soul within each of us. Black also represents elegance; timeless in fashion, illustration or packaging. When you wear black, you can’t go wrong. From generation to generation, it goes with all colours, and will shock very little – even when used to excess. Still, alongside this elegance, black can quickly echo emptiness and sadness. Clearly this painted African woman, with her dazzling smile, responds to both yellowness and blackness.

What it means to be African

The essential identity of man cannot be defined a priori by culture; culture just makes man capable of inhabiting the world in his particular period of history. So culture, being related to time and space, has consistency both for individual experience and collective experience. And it is within this framework of identity that the African man must maintain himself in order to raise his being and his culture to their full dignity.

Biography

Salon de Peinture Grand-Popo is an art collective formed in 2018. It investigates West African hand-painted commercial sign culture through portrait paintings executed in the style of beauty parlour advertisements. Currently the collective’s permanent members are Louis Houenoude (painter), Juliette Sossou (producer) and Riiko Sakkinen (artistic director). At the moment Salon de Peinture Grand-Popo is preparing for its first exhibition, which will take place in Stockholm, Sweden, as well as a large commission titled Top 10 African Presidents for Serlachius Museums, Finland.

Juliette Sossou is the producer of Salon de Peinture Grand-Popo. She was born in 1987 in Sé, Benin. Sossou is a singer, actress and restaurateur. She lives and works in Grand-Popo.

Riiko Sakkinen is in charge of the artistic direction of Salon de Peinture Grand-Popo together with Louis. He was born in 1976 in Helsinki. Sakkinen lives in Pepino, Spain, and works as a visual artist.

Houenoude is the collective’s resident painter. He was born in 1981 in Grand-Popo, a small town on the South-West coast of Benin. Houenoude studied painting in Cotonou. He lives and works in the village of Hêvë, just outside of Grand-Popo.

Houenoude started out painting the walls of barber shops for a living. His first portrait series, which he named “Bad Hair Day Leaders”, consists of 14 portraits of today’s world leaders including Angela Merkel, Xi Jinping and Donald Trump.

Houenoude learned painting with his father, who also painted shop walls for a living. He now paints alongside his own children; his younger son works as his assistant, cleaning his brushes.