Makef, contemporary Beninese painter and drawer
From sculpture to drawing, there is only a sketch in Mafek's mind. The Beninese artist explores the line with a finesse known only to him.
He has a series of drawings titled "My Sleepless Nights and a Few Days of Wandering" or "My Insomniacs and Nomadic Nights." Exhibited at Galerie Vallois in Paris this winter (January 9 – February 1, 2025), his drawings redefine the boundaries between drawing and sculpture through a bold practice of black ballpoint pen. The works of this remarkable draftsman are both dense and evanescent. They summon double or multiple figures, whose execution is inspired by the technique of bas-relief sculpture.
His drawn works create a dialogue between graphic expression and sculptural gesture. This visual effect emerges from the meticulous handling of shadows and volumes, but also from the way forms either emerge from or dissolve into the surface. The black ballpoint pen, a tool of precision and lightness, becomes in Makef’s hands an instrument of graphic sculpting.
His drawings possess a paradoxical materiality. Although created with a medium as fluid as a ballpoint pen, they exude an almost tactile presence. Each line acts like a chisel stroke, carving the surface of the paper to imprint forms that seem tangible. This tension between the lightness of the medium and the density of the rendering gives his works a timeless quality.
Vends ton âme à qui tu veux, (2015) MAKEF
The double or multiple figures that inhabit his graphic universe echo the dynamics inherent to sculpture, particularly within Beninese artistic traditions, where twin figures often express complex relationships. In his drawings, these figures intertwine, overlap, and merge, creating an impression of perpetual movement and transformation.
In a subtle play between darkness and light, the artist engraves the memory of bodies and identities, transforming each work into a graphic archive of the human experience. He conveys depth through relief, plays with contrasts, and explores the boundaries between visibility and invisibility. His multiform and shape-shifting figures, often associated with spiritual or symbolic themes in local traditions, become universal representations of human ambiguity and complexity. Between heritage and modernity, he sculpts forms, relationships, emotions, and memories.
Much like the technique of sculptography, he transforms a flat surface into a sculptural visual space, where lines become matter, light, and essence.
Des masques nos visages, (2025) MAKEF
