"TOHUYO"

Cyprien Tokoudagba (1939 - 2012) was a sculptor and painter from Abomey, Benin.

He started to work as a restorer for the Abomey Museum in 1987, when he was hired to replicate the original bas-reliefs that told many of Dahomey's legends and stories while celebrating the individual kings for the new King Glelé royal palace façade, among the Royal Palaces of Abomey reconstructed by the government of Benin.
In contact with the very rich traditions of Benin painting, a country that was one of the most prominent cultural cradles of the African continent, and was chopped up by colonial boundaries, Cipryen Tokoudagba made his name as the master painter of vodoo temples in Benin, Ghana, Togo and Nigeria.

From the most modest (a single wall painting, Vodun divinity, or domestic or regional fetish...) to the most elaborate. These wall paintings are made up of the symbolic figureheads of political and especially religious power, and are often a confusion of both, as well as the geometrical cultural signs on the walls of the place of worship. The sculptures borrow from the traditions of Beninese sculpture, which is often anthropomorphic and very large. Concrete, a modern substitute for traditional materials, is worked on when it is still boxed, then carved before it is completely dry, and finally painted. These statues have the faces of Vodun divinities, of which Legba is the central figure.

Without abandoning the wall paintings that he is commissioned, Cyprien Tokoudagba undertook 1989 some large canvasses in which he combined, taking great liberties, the emblems of the kings of Abomey, symbols of the divinities (Earth, Fire, Water, Air) and various objects related to his culture. The combination of all these faces, objects and signs make his paintings look like a strange rebus.

Also in 1989, Cyprien left Benin for the first time to exhibit at “Magiciens de la Terre” in Paris, France. Tokoudagba's work was exhibited at the "Ouidah '92" festival, which celebrated Vodun art from Benin and the African Diaspora in Ouidah, Benin in February 1993.
His works have also been exhibited in the following museums: Smithsonian institution - National Museum of African Art, Washington, DC; Musée Dapper, Paris, France; Museum Kunst Palast, Düsseldorf, Germany; Hayward Gallery, London, Englands; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France; Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan; São Paulo Biennale, Brasil.