Moufouli Bello was selected to be featured in the Africa Present: MEET section

Moufouli Bello, born in 1987, is a young multimedia and visual artist from Benin. Bello began her professional artistic practice in 2012 when she participated in the creation of the Upright Man organized by the Zinsou Foundation in Cotonou, Benin. The artist is primarily interested in how cults, traditions, culture, politics and technology affect perceptions of society, emotions, and unity. She examines issues of ethnicity and systemic sexism. Bello utilizes a diversity of media to explore these topics, ranging from painting to animation art, installation, photography, sound and digital art.

The present portrait, BLACK BIRD, painted while the artist was a resident in a workshop in Tourcoing, France, embodies the artist’s statement that “I want people who look at my portraits, to actually meet the eyes of my women and truly see them, so that they, in turn, can also “see themselves.”” Gazing powerfully back at her viewer, the sitter in BLACK BIRD commands attention. Rendered in tones of blue and pastel with splashes of bright green foliage, the portrait is both calm and arresting. At ease in her billowing floral dress, it is as if the work's viewer must ask permission to approach. Sartorial markers aside, the sitter for Bello’s portrait remains mysterious and distant. This dual sense of intimacy and distinct personal space can be contextualized by the fact that Bello often paints in silence, and thus allowing her to concentrate only on internal thoughts. Exampled in BLACK BIRD, Bello’s paintings become dreamlike in their blend of realism and abstraction.

Moufouli Bello has participated in international exhibitions in Paris, Lomé, Casablanca and Vienna among others. Notable solo exhibitions include Moufouli Bello, Résidence de l’Union Européenne in Cotonou, Bénin in 2018 and Papyrus at the French Institute of Benin in Cotonou in 2016. Recently, the artist has been included in group exhibitions at the Art X Art Fair with SMO Contemporary Art in Lagos, Nigeria in 2019 and By Women Only at Nelly Wandji Gallery, Paris in 2019. In 2019, Bello was selected to attend The Frenoy National School of Digital Arts in Tourcoing, France where she currently resides.

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