Visual artist

Biography: Born in 1962 in Porto-Novo in the Republic of Benin, Romuald Hazoumé is Yoruba of origin. At a very young age, he focused on enhancing the elements of his environment. After being a brilliant student, he practiced high level sport before embracing his career as a painter – sculptor. He was the first artist to transform the waste of his environment into works of art, expressing his personality and talent through several sculptures and masks made since the 1980s with recycled materials. Emeritus artist, he gives life, through his works, to his imagination to reiterate all stages of creation and give a modern interpretation of the facts of society.

He has 5 solo exhibitions in 10 countries in Africa, Europe and the United States, and has participated in 19 group shows in 15 countries around the world. His last exhibition was inaugurated on May 09, 2003 at the AC Museum in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Despite his great openness to the West and his many opportunities to settle outside the African continent, he remains a Beninese attached to his soil, keeps in touch with the cult of ancestors and is incarnated in the voodoo.

Thus, since 1993, he has embarked on the plastic interpretation of the Fa, the oracle which presides over divination and which is compared to a cosmogony, a Bible or a quran ever written. This studious work – so much it requires a long and rigorous initiation – is transmitted from father to son and represents for Romuald Hazoumé, an obvious because having answer to everything.
Through an important series of works undertaken in this direction, and where natural pigments and organic materials are related to the origin of the Fa, the artist wants to unveil the invisible and bring together characteristics common to different cultures.

A striking personality of art in Black Africa, attentive to criticism and suggestions, he steals from success to success by offering his audience a very rich exhibition, both visually, aesthetically, historically and politically.