Minuit à Abomey (Midnight in Abomey)

Dominique Zinkpè’s practice stretches across painting and sculpture. His canvases are populated by ethereal, ghostly figures who float and glide across the picture plane. Zinkpè’s influences range between the indigenous mythological folklore of Benin to the more recent introduction of Catholicism. His preoccupation as an artist is with the metaphysical and with spirituality, without belonging to a single organised religion: in this way the work engages with hybridisation and the crossover and interplay between cultures. Dance and fertility are consistent motifs evoking themes of desire, and the unconscious mind.
Minuit à Abomey is a quintessential example of Zinkpè’s practice. Signature ghostly figures either drift or sit statically, three of them seem to address the viewer directly from the confines of their spiritual realm. The silhouette of a malevolent rooster looms large at the centre of the canvas, another figure with electrified hair, yellow teeth and sagging breasts hovers above. Zinkpè’s spirit world is a menagerie of the grotesque.
Zinkpè was awarded the Prix Jeune Talent Africain (Young African Talent) Award at the Grapholie in Abidjan in 1993. In 2002 he received the UEMOA Prize at the Dakar Biennale. Recent exhibitions include Growbox Art Project at Zeitz MOCAA, Cape Town, in 2019, and Divines Masquerades at the Fondation Montresso, Casablanca in 2018.