Patrick Gaël Wokmeni

Since 2006, I have fully dedicated myself, as a self-taught photographer, to photography as a medium. This natural passion for images has its origins in my dealings with many visual artists who frequented the neighbourhood of my childhood, the New-Bell district of Douala. I would wander through the alleys of my hometown and other urban environments, looking for images. I was mainly fascinated with obscure places and nightclubs, the underground or underbelly of society.

During and after my time at the HISK, my work acquired greater conceptual substance. I do not consider myself a documentary or reportage photographer but rather a visual artist who happens to be working in the medium of photography. At a conceptual level, my work has more to do with the viewer (he or she who looks and interprets) than with the maker (as an interface) or the depicted - which often appears in either very explicit images or abstractions. I would like to describe my work as ethically a-moral, yet containing a political dimension and a specific aesthetic strategy.