Galerie Cécile Fakhoury is pleased to present ‘Toi Seulement’, a solo show by Vincent Michéa.

Dedicated to his practice of photomontage, ‘Toi seulement’ is a visual wander through the artistic study that has marked the artist’s career over the last decade. Known for his colourful, pop paintings that borrow their themes from popular film and music culture as well as from the daily life of West African cities, Vincent Michéa has developed a continuous approach that has become increasingly personal but just as ambitious, which this exhibition aims to bring viewers in to discover again and again.

The chronological display takes us from Paris to Dakar via Abidjan, three cities that occupy an important place in the artist’s life, three geographies but also three cultural influences that respond and echo each other from work to work.

At the beginning is a collection of sensitive materials, images, textures, shapes, colours that have a double symbolic power for Vincent Michéa. First, sensory materials that appeal to touch, hearing as well as sight: the crumpled, matte gold of Kubor’s wrapping paper that squeaks in your ear as you unwrap it; the immaculate, shiny surface of photographic prints that invite you to grasp them with your whole hand at the risk of leaving a few fingerprints; the infinitely varied pointillist weave that twists the viewer’s eye.

From painting to photomontage, Vincent Michéa has always worked closely with materials, especially favouring sculptural objects. These sensory materials also appeal to memory. The photos that are at the origin of the works are as much those taken by Vincent Michéa as those he borrows from others, but all share the fact that they form a pantheon of memories that can be accessed between the lines.

The artist’s passions thus constitute his primary sources of inspiration: in the early 1980s, a decisive encounter with Senegal and its capital, which we find in the series ‘100% Dakar’ (2014); his affection for the black art scene from the late 1970s, to the committed creativity he evokes in ‘Or série’ (2015); and Fatou, the artist’s wife and muse, the main character in the series ‘Fatou Pompidou’ (2017) and ‘Fatou New Look - Pompidou Remix’ (2020).

Born in 1963 in Figeac, France. He lives and works in Paris and Dakar.

Vincent Michéa

Toi Seulement

20 March - 8 May 2020

Galerie Cécile Fakhoury - Dakar

https://cecilefakhoury.com/