Ethel Print

Painting/Printmaking is my chief mode of creation. Though I work primarily in synthetic polymer, I also make heavy use of gold leaf, newspaper prints, corn amylum bioplastic, oil and charcoal. I have an especially close relationship with bioplastic because after I melt it down and mix with water and a binding agent, it closely resembles “fufu” which is one of the most popular West/Central African cultural dishes. These little aspects of my practice bring my work full circle, from my experiences in Europe and America back home to Cameroon in Africa. In addition to painting and printmaking, I also lightly engage in photography. At first glance of my portfolio, my work may seem like an assembly of contradictions - the quietness of my portraits is sharply contrasted by the vibrant shapes/motifs of my Tribal Countenances, just as much as the Tribal Countenances themselves bear almost no signature similarity to my Symphonies. However, my work though dissimilar in series, is an amalgamation of the different facets of the human psyche that make up me and the community I live in - tranquility and noise, form and formlessness, smoothness and textured terrain, love and hate, confidence and embarrassment, trust and betrayal, life and death. All these aspects are necessary for the growth of a man as well as the proper functioning of the society which he inhabits. As a man, I feel these tensions in me and around me, each inspiring a different outlook on the world that is just as important and beautiful as the other. That is why I create in this fashion: to ensure that my creative vision is never pigeonholed into one form of artistic expression. An opera of only one note makes for dreadful listening. All in all, my work is the most honest form of conversation I have with myself and my environment. It is also my way of inserting my Cameroonian culture and lessons into an art world that is primarily Western/European. This lets my audience in on a part of a world many of them are very unfamiliar with. My mission is to explore the unique attributes of the human experience by emphasizing the Arts through performance and education in such a manner as to uplift, include and inspire progress. With my work, I can execute this vision as truthfully as is possible, while wrestling with difficult existential concepts.