Adjani Okpu-Egbe was born in Kumba, Cameroon, in the contested region known as Ambazonia, in 1979. He studied archaeology and history at university, before moving to England to enroll in the British Army in 2007. It was while on sick leave that he began drawing and painting, finding that art was a form of therapy for his depression. An Afro-surreal expressionist artist, Okpu-Egbe uses mixed media, including discarded objects, to make paintings and installations that investigate socio-political and economic issues related to Africa, its diaspora and reflections on political activism and global social justice.
Multidisciplinary artist Adjani Okpu-Egbe was born in Kumba, Cameroon, in the contested region known as Ambazonia, in 1979, a native of Kembong and Ndoi Batanga, the hometowns of his paternal and maternal ancestors, respectively. Both his grandparents were chiefs – cultural custodians – and his paternal grandfather was the head of the ‘Nyánkpè’ secret society; this powerful legacy would later inform his work and inspire his symbolism. Okpu-Egbe studied archaeology and history at university. However, worried that he would struggle to earn a living in Cameroon, he joined the British Army, serving for five years, before being discharged due to poor health in 2012. While on sick leave he began drawing and painting. He later recalled that ‘I was at peace. I stopped taking my prescribed antidepressants […] and I used my art as therapy. I did a couple of drawings which many people seemed to really like, and I just took it from there’ (Walters 2013). An Afro-surreal expressionist artist, Okpu-Egbe uses mixed media, including found objects, to make paintings and installations that investigate socio-political and economic issues affecting Africa and its diaspora, as well as reflecting on political activism and global social justice. He often uses non-traditional supports, like reclaimed doors, which function as metaphors of the ‘difficulties and possibilities in life’ (1-54 interview), exemplified by the diptych Takumbeng’s Creed, Ambazonian Fortress (2019). He also incorporates everyday items, such as books, mousetraps, and bubble wrap, building up complex layers of meaning. African History, Pan-Africanism and Afrocentricity are central to his practice, although he also explores more generalised issues, such as climate change, feminism, hate and patriarchy. Okpu-Egbe's compositions draw on a rich symbolism inspired by the natural world, including vines bearing lemons, pregnant fish, and semi-abstract beasts, which refer to specific people and histories of oppression, as well as celebrations of freedom. Okpu-Egbe acknowledges that, unlike Western Surrealism, Afro-Surrealism has been inadequate in questioning important socio-political issues and he strongly believes that art ‘has immense potential to stir resistance against authoritarianism, rally support and seek justice’ (1-54 Interview).
Okpu-Egbe was a co-founder of the Ambazonian Prisoners of Conscience Support Network which supports Ambazonian human rights defenders in prisons and secret detention centres in Cameroon. Through his work, Okpu-Egbe aims to raise awareness about Ambazonia and the ongoing war waged there by the French neocolonial regime. In Sisiku AyukTabe, the Martin Luther King Jr. of Ambazonia (2021), he depicted the anglophone separatist leader and first president of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia on an imagined cover of Time magazine, while the installation Assault on Ebam (2021) related to the extrajudicial pillaging of an Ambazonian village by French-backed death squads. Okpu-Egbe placed flags of the UK, USA, United Nations, European Union, and France on the ground, in a perceived act of sacrilege, while hanging small Cameroonian flags on green military mesh against the wall. Other works have been inspired by South African anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko and American abolitionist Harriet Tubman.
For Okpu-Egbe, the Ambazonian struggle for self-determination can also function as the symbol for similar events in West Papua, West Sahara and the Central African Republic, as well as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, civil war in Syria and the genocide of Rohingyas in Myanmar carried out by the regime. A recurring theme is Takumbeng, a female social movement in Ambazonia, comprised of matriarchs protesting harmful traditional practices against women. Rich in motherhood imagery, his work represents Black feminism as a force of resistance against white, patriarchal power, as exemplified by The Aftermath of Mautu (2021). This mixed-media painting depicts a mother dressed in blue — a colour symbolising love and harmony — holding her children close while balancing a yellow fish on her turned cheek, suggesting stability and rebirth. The work references the murder of Ambazonian women and children in the village of Mautu by Cameroonian soldiers in early 2021. Okpu-Egbe has also experimented with sculpture. His visually powerful, free-standing A French Soldier‘s Trophy Head in Cameroon 1950’s/1960’s, made of clay, metal, wood and human hair, was inspired by the brutal repression carried out against the Bamileke clan by French and Cameroon forces due to the former’s resistance to French colonial rule.
Okpu-Egbe’s showed his art in a group show in barracks in 2010. Subsequently, his first solo exhibition, Letting Go, was held at the Mokspace Gallery, London (2012). Further solo shows included the Knight Webb Gallery (2013), Green & Stone of Chelsea (2019) and Sulger-Buel Gallery (2019). In 2018 he was involved in Tate Exchange Projects at Tate Modern, London. He has also exhibited internationally, including in the USA and Israel. In 2020, he was the recipient of the Ritzau Art Prize, awarded to promising visual artists from the African continent and of African descent, which allowed him to spend a three-month residency in New York. Okpu-Egbe’s work is not currently represented in UK public collections.
Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Adjani Okpu-Egbe]
Publications related to [Adjani Okpu-Egbe] in the Ben Uri Library