• “I like this idea of a dialogue in my work, and that through the image I create, we feel a person’s
    whole life course. The fact that it is not just an image to create an image, but rather that there is a
    real story behind it.”

     

    - Rakajoo


  • Since his first solo exhibition at the Danysz gallery in 2021, Rakajoo's journey has already seen several accomplishments: a solo...
    Rakajoo, Quatre chemins, 2024
    Courtesy: Danysz Gallery

    Since his first solo exhibition at the Danysz gallery in 2021, Rakajoo's journey has already seen several accomplishments: a solo exhibition at the Palais de Tokyo in 2023 after winning the 2022 Prix des Amis from the same museum, the preparation of a comic book with Casterman, and participation in the major group exhibition "Les Mondes Souterrains" at the Louvre-Lens in 2024. For this new solo exhibition, his multimedia works, canvases, comic book pages, and videos occupy all three levels of the gallery.

     

    Both a painter, illustrator, and creator of animated films, Baye-Dam Cissé, also known as Rakajoo, is a multifaceted artist who does not hesitate to draw inspiration from techniques across different disciplines to combine them and create immersive narratives that reflect his critical view of the contemporary world.

     

    Ever curious, he has always had a passion for the great masters of painting. While he still passionately cites Toulouse-Lautrec and Picasso, who inspired his childhood dreams, he now also references his contemporaries, whether it’s Kerry James Marshall—whose thematic affinities (everyday scenes, African diasporic communities in Europe or the U.S.) and stylistic similarities (deep color palettes) resonate with him—Jacob Lawrence, or Jérôme Lagarrigue.

     

    These are just a few of the figures of contemporary painting who have passed on to him the taste for boldness and the courage to approach painting in such a distinctive way, with a style that is uniquely his own. His work is instantly recognizable, whether by the treatment of his characters, often with undersized eyes, his palette dominated by deep reds, or his plunging perspectives, sometimes accentuated to the point of imbalance.

  • Drawing from the codes of painting, animated cinema, and comic books, Rakajoo is a portraitist who loves to weave stories....
    Rakajoo, Quatre Chemins, Dans nos regards, Palais de Tokyo, 2023
    Courtesy: Aurélien Mole & Danysz Gallery

    Drawing from the codes of painting, animated cinema, and comic books, Rakajoo is a portraitist who loves to weave stories. His works—whether oil and acrylic paintings or hybrid creations combining painting, sound, and image—possess a cinematic dimension that generates a narrative, inevitably leading the viewer to question the scene they are witnessing. The depicted figures then become characters. They have a soul, a “story,” as the artist says, who strives to reveal the connecting thread that links them to the work.

     

    Drawing from his personal life, Rakajoo’s work reveals fragments of his daily life, both in its most trivial and grandiose aspects, but always with distance and restraint. He creates seemingly ordinary life scenes (urban landscapes, portraits of loved ones or himself), but the details, mischievously scattered like clues across the canvas, give his painting multiple layers of meaning.

     

    Immersing oneself in these works is to engage in a reflection on subjects that are both intimate and universal, personal as well as political. As Palais de Tokyo curator Hugo Vitrani emphasises, “[Rakajoo’s] work finds its roots in an Afropean soul that is characterised by duality and pluralism: a story about being African, European and both at once without discontinuity”.

     

  • IN THE PRESS
    Le peintre Rakajoo, de bulles et de toiles, Le Monde (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    Rakajoo, un autodidacte sur le ring de la peinture, BeauxArts (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    Rakajoo, artiste obstiné, Diptyk (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    Rakajoo, le Toulouse-Lautrec de Château Rouge, Télérama (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    Rakajoo, le peintre de Kourtrajmé, Artpress (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).

    Le peintre Rakajoo, de bulles et de toiles, Le Monde 

  • About the artist
    Courtesy: Giovanni Battista Righetti

    About the artist

    Baye-Dam Cissé, also known as Rakajoo, is a French artist born in 1986. A graduate of the Art & Image department of the Kourtrajmé school, founded by filmmaker Ladj Ly and artist JR, he pursues both his careers as an artist and a high-level boxer. First discovered in 2008, he has since exhibited in Paris, Shanghai, and Luxembourg. Winner of the Prix des Amis du Palais de Tokyo in 2022, he opened his first solo exhibition, titled Ceinture NWAR, at the Parisian institution in October 2023. He lives and works in the Paris region.