This rising painter reimagines Renaissance art in a cocoa plantation in Cameroon

Marc Padeu, a painter from Cameroon, draws inspiration from Renaissance art brought into an African landscape. The above painting is title "Sous le poids de la coupe" — under the weight of the cup. Copyright The Artist/Courtesy Larkin Durey hide caption toggle caption Copyright The Artist/Courtesy Larkin Durey Cameroonian painter Marc Padeu says that being an African artist means "being the heir to an extraordinarily rich history." But he also says it can mean "living and working on a continent where artistic infrastructure is virtually nonexistent." Padeu's work often takes inspiration from religious paintings from the European Renaissance –- but reimagines them, depicting people in Cameroon's cocoa plantations. London gallery Larkin Durey is currently holding an exhibition of Padeu's latest work. Marc Padeu, a painter from Cameroon, has a new show at the London gallery London gallery Larkin Durey. Courtesy of Larkin Durey hide caption toggle caption Courtesy of Larkin Durey Oliver Durey, the gallery's director, said: "Mark's work is timeless. His visual style is simultaneously very contemporary but also deeply rooted in that old tradition –- so there is something extremely fresh about it." Padeu is from Bafang in the West Region of Cameroon and is part of the Bamileké ethnic group. The 36-year-old now lives in Yaoundé, the country's political capital. In an interview with NPR, Padeu explained his art — and what inspires him. Can you talk about why you meld classic Western paintings with African scenes? I wouldn't say that I'm trying to fuse Western painting with African scenes. For me, it's more a question of placing images that everyone recognizes within a setting that is familiar to me. I grew up in Cameroon, surrounded by plantations, villages and people who make their living from the land. That's the world I know best, so it's only natural that this is the setting in which I want to tell these stories. At one point, I asked myself why certain images seemed to belong exclusively to Europe. Why should the Nativity, the Last Supper or Christ in Gethsemane always be depicted with the same faces and the same landscapes? Yet what they convey goes far beyond any particular place or era. They speak of love, sacrifice, fear, hope, family. These are profoundly human, universal experiences. How did you become an artist? It's certainly down to genetics, first and foremost. My mother is a fashion designer. She doesn't work much any more, but when I was younger, I used to see her fashion sketchbooks. So I inherited this talent from my mother. I was already drawing a lot at primary school and then at secondary school. I was the one who often helped teachers draw their demonstration sketches on the blackboard in front of my classmates. This often earned me a certain reputation at the various schools I attended. Later on, I went on to study at the school of fine arts. I must say the timing was perfect in that respect. The very year I passed my A-levels, the Cameroonian government opened the country's very first art schools. So I'm part of the very first ever intake of graduates from that school. It was a very traditional course, based mainly on the study of art history. "La bague de Roxane" — Roxane's ring — by Marc Padeu Private Collection, USA/Image copyright of the artist, courtesy of Larkin Durey hide caption toggle caption Private Collection, USA/Image copyright of the artist, courtesy of Larkin Durey Is there one artist who inspired you most? The African American painter Kerry James Marshall. Marshall was a significant discovery for me, not because I wanted to paint like him, but because he showed me that it was possible to reestablish Black bodies at the heart of the great tradition of painting. He never merely added Black figures to an art history that had already been written; he demonstrated that they were an integral part of it. I do think, however, that our approaches subsequently take different dir