Gallery ILE is delighted to present its Cabinet of Curiosities, inspired by the attire often found in the Vestiaire of Kings and Monarchs at the Royal Court of Dahomey's ancient Kingdom.

Amongst these truly rare finds, a one of a kind "Makpo" or Recade, the royal sceptre specific to the Kings of Dahomey who wore them on the left shoulder. Casted in bronze, it features intricately  carved feathers and is adorned with a mythological Kalao bird's head believed to symbolise the arrival of peace. 

A wooden hair comb, arm bands, paper weights and refined jewellery pieces masterfully carved in Ebony wood, red agate, organic clay and bones. 

There's even a stellar 60 years old ancestral 'Adjito' board game hand carved in Guibourtia Copallife that eerily resembles a baby crocodile. 

We Hope you'll enjoy this highly curated selection of interstellar artefacts and rare collectibles, masterfully crafted by the best master-artisans currently working in Benin. 

Image Credits: Phyllis Galembo

With a career spanning three decades, critically acclaimed visual artist Charly D'Almeida, whose creative practice is based in Cotonou, is one of the driving forces furthering the establishment and international radius of contemporary art from Benin, with a following wing of dedicated collectors across the African continent, Europe at large and The United States. 

Concerned with the perils plaguing human society, D'Almeida’s oeuvre confronts viewers with notions of materialism, mass consumerism and the environment. Throughout his practice, D’Almeida aspires to transfigure the human experience by way of a visual narrative that is intrinsically dystopian, bold and arresting.

Although formerly trained as a painter, over the past 15 years, Charly D'Almeida has been perfecting his creed as a sculptural ironsmith, which today confers him the status of a master. Known for molding uniquely idiosyncratic sculptures, through an ingenious use of scraped metal parts and other recycled components, Charly D’Almeida feverishly repurposes, recomposes and reconstitutes the discarded fragments of our humanity, into intricate structures that are all together mesmerizing, gleeful, unnerving and at times discomforting. 

D'Almeida conceives each sculpture as a prayer addressed to Ogun, the emblematic God of Iron & War and the Patron of all Silversmiths, in Benin’s Cosmogony. As if ignited by this divine bolt, metal becomes a means for transmutation, through which the artist reshapes matter itself, ultimately baring apparent the abuse of Mankind upon its environment.  

In essence, Charly D'Almeida's blissful amalgamations, are the portraits of every day life characters, encountered on a street corner, in transit at ann airport, or at the terrace of a café. They are the constituants of a human race in search of redemption. 

Dominique Zinkpè is one of the preeminent contemporary African artists working today.

Encompassing mediums as diverse as drawing, painting, collage, sculpture, video and installation, Zinkpè's corpus is informed by the rich historical and cultural traditions of his native Benin, which the artist transfigures into breathtaking compositions addressing issues on race, religion, sexuality, spirituality, mythology, as well as the antagonizing forces at play in his own life.

Elaborate, symbolic and highly intimate, the paintings by Zinkpè possess a riveting surrealist quality. His abstracted multiverse often features sinuous and hybrid anthropomorphic female entities, powerful chimeras and mythical beasts engaged in romps of power, disguise and allure that hint at the irony and satire of the human comedy. 

Zinkpè's archetypal visual narrative draws inspiration from the unresolved tensions pervading Benin's colonial past and its journey to sovereignty. In his creative practice, the seminal artist continues to bring forth the conundrums subsisting between Catholicism and Animism.

The fertile colleen frequently appearing throughout Zinkpè's body of work seem entrenched in maniacal dances evoking the sacred Vaudou rituals, central in both Fon and Yorùbá cultural ideologies. Each confronts the viewer with notions of desire, birth, abortion and expectancy. 

All together a pioneer, an iconoclast and a visionary, Dominique Zinkpè unearths masterpieces that are anchored at the core of the 21st century cultural zeitgeist. His oeuvre is the stellar epitome of a contemporary African creation that alleviates borders and elevates our inherent humanity. 

Collected by a major institutions:

Zeitz MOCAA

For Elon-M Tossou, art is a gateway to spirituality. This realisation, manifested at a young age, has determined his holistic creative vocation.

As a native of Oumako, Elon's ancestry is rooted in Hulagan, otherwise known as Grand Popo, Benin's high place of traditional religious practices.

Infused with wisdom and whimsy, the mysterious compositions of Elon-M Tossou, investigate notions of race, gender, identity, human existence, death, and the afterlife.

In his creative practice, Tossou invites the viewer on a holistic journey reconnecting man with nature, yet daring to confront traditional archetypes with hybrid notions of dystopia, intellectual cross-pollination and applied sciences.

The prevailing role women play in West African society remains a subject matter pervading Tossou's body of work.

Read the full artist biography HERE

At barely 30, Epaphras Toïhen already commands a body of work of impressive maturity.

This 3rd generation prodigy was nurtured early on by his father and grandfather, both master-sculptors trained at the mythical Dohoundji Atelier, located on the edges of ‘Oro Zoun’, the sacred forest near Agonli-Houégbo, in the Zou region of Benin, in West Africa.Thus, art is fundamentally inherent to Epaphras Toihen’s personal journey. Through lineage, by tradition, culture, history and most importantly by his native land.

In his creative corpus, Toïhen formulates an aesthetic that echoes not only to primordial archetypes such as purity and intemporality but confronts us with notions of sustainability, the passing of time and memory preservation.

The sculptures by Epaphras Toïhen are like portals to the spiritual realm of nature. In his practice, the artist addresses fundamental questions as to where humanity stands in relations to nature and the cosmos.

The sculptor's masterful hand carving technique reveals the semantic hidden within the soul of wood. The iconic stripes Toïhen carves into the flesh of the kernel are an homage to the scarifications of the sacred Voodoo rituals which are inherently part of Benin’s spiritual ordinance.

Through his inventive approach to form and abstraction, Epaphras Toïhen accesses a cathartic dimension where thoughts and feelings arise organically, beyond the realm of mere beauty, with each interstice revealing the stratum of our shared humanity. 

Our state-of-the-art E-commerce offers seasoned collectors and dedicated art lovers the opportunity to explore new ways of collecting contemporary African fine art & design.

We advocate a lifestyle that is not just beautiful and luxurious, but deeply connected to nature, culture, community, tradition and history.

Our iconic fine art pieces and rare collectibles are handcrafted in Benin by the trailblazing  trans-disciplinary artists and master-craftsmen originating from Benin, West Africa and its Diaspora worldwide. 

Every work of art is unique, authentic and certified.

Please contact us for more information

Explore a corpus of works investigating the medium of fine art paintings by some the best emerging and internationally acclaimed trans-disciplinaires leading the contemporary art scene in Benin, West Africa and its Diaspora worldwide. 

Our focus on the technique, the authenticity and the high quality of the work is uncompromising.

Each item - unique, authentic and certified. - has been curated with the greatest care, not just to ignite your acquiring gaze but essentially bring more meaning, joy and wonder to your life.  

Please contact us for more information

Internationally acclaimed visual artist Gérard Quenum, is considered one of the founding fathers of West African abstract figuration. A movement of which he has been at the forefront for past two decades.

Quenum, whose practice is based in Porto-Novo, Benin, West Africa, is a modest and quiet gentleman. Yet, work by the seminal artist frequently hauls front stage at major exhibitions in Paris, London and New York. Today, Quenum’s oeuvre has  been permanently incorporated into the preeminent collections of leading art institutions, the likes of British Museum and Tate Modern in the UK, or Stanford University in the US, to name but a few.

All together mesmerizing and disconcerting, the minimalistic yet highly energetic canvases by Gérard Quenum, interrogate us on notions of humanism, societal conundrums, death, grief and the afterlife. Often featuring chromatically pared down figures, evolving within ethereal vacuities, permeated by primary colors, Quenum's paintings, further extrapolate myriads of potential scenarios that unfold inside the viewer’s own mind. 

In his oeuvre, the artist attempts to symbolize the reincarnation of life, through the whimsical tales of his native land, and its deep seated, rich historical traditions, by way of which Quenum masterfully peers into the future. 

A true iconoclast, an intellectual, a luminary, a free thinker, a social activist and an all around humanitarian, Gérard Quenum presents us, in his creative practice, with  a compelling message of hope, peace and resilience against the overbearing reign of imperialism, totalitarianism, colonialism, racism, and other abusive forms of power, like police brutality and military oppressions, still plaguing the history of Mankind, even more so in our current day and age. 

Gallery ILÉ is proud to unveil its first creative collaboration with the weavers at the Royal Palace of Abomey, located in southern Benin.

Initiated by King Agonglo the 8th - one of the greatest patrons of artisanship in the history of ancient Dahomey, now Benin - the ateliers of Agonglovo - meaning in Fòn language "weaved by the hand at the palace of King Agonglo" - became renowned throughout West Africa for their unparalleled weaving technique, and for ultimately revolutionizing the structural components of the traditional weaving table. 

During his reign (1789 - 1797), King Agonglo helped nurture some of the best master weavers the empire has ever seen. Today, the very descendants of these master weavers continue to perpetuate this legacy inside the same ateliers, located at the heart of the royal palace, a monument now inscribed by UNESCO on the list of Humanity’s Intangible Cultural Heritage. 

Emerging from this symbiotic creative collaboration, ILÉ is thrilled to present a capsule collection of Tote Bags and Scarfs, produced exclusively in organic yarns, using ancestral techniques, and dyed only in natural pigments formulated on site in a completely sustainable and environmentally conscious approach. 

As a Gèlèdé master-artisan, the practice of Kifouli Dossou finds its origins in the cultural ideologies of Fon & Yorùba. Llinked through history, tradition and language to the Kingdom of Dahomey.The oral tradition of Gèlèdé, one of West Africa’s crown jewels, is inscribed by UNESCO on the List of Humanity’s Intangible Cultural Heritage.

Kifouli Dossou carves directly in the mass of Merina wood. The craftsman appreciates this peculiar kernel for its striking opalescence, light weight and high resistance, making it notoriously hard to work. 

Kifouli's awe-inspiring technique is the alliance of a gentle sensuality and a dazzling tour de force, conferring him as one of Benin's highly sought-after master-artisan.

Louis Oké-Agbo is unarguably one the foremost contemporary visual artists currently working in Benin, West Africa.

In his practice, Oké-Agbo pioneers a hybrid form of creative expression that speaks to the rich historical traditions of his native land. Masterfully blurring the lines between painting and fine art photography, his otherworldly images are formed through a process of superimposition and the affixing of various endemic textural elements.

The laterite soil of West Africa, the primordial flora of Benin’s sacred forests or the decaying walls of dystopian urban landscapes partially reclaimed by nature. Each substrate Oké-Agbo imprints on the bodies of his subjects, reveals the osmotic link that connects humanity with the environment, and serves as a gentle reminder that every wound we inflict upon Mother Earth, is irrevocably returned to us. 

Confronting the viewer with notions of history, race, culture, gender, identity, psychology and social inequities, the compelling visual narrative of Louis Oké-Agbo further addresses a very sensitive issue, plaguing not only African societies but humanity at large.The importance of Empathy.

Thought his non profit organisation, Vie & Solidarité, Louis Oké-Agbo has pledged to put his notoriety to the service of the less fortunate. Built as a bridge across the abyss of social isolation, the art therapy center he opened in Porto-Novo (Benin) in 2017, welcomes 'the invisibles' who populate the back alleys of his beloved city. Individuals with mental disability, too often outcasted by society just for being different, are once again able to find fulfilment in everyday life through the creative prisms of visual art.
 
Louis Oké-Agbo's commitment is of the noblest constituency, for nothing can make our life and the lives of others more beautiful than perpetual kindness.

Léonce Raphaël Agbodjelou is one of the pre-eminent photographers emerging from the Republic of Benin.

Born in Porto-Novo in 1965, his creative journey was greatly influenced by his late father, the world-renowned photographer Joseph Moise Agbodjelou (1912-2000). Today, a critically acclaimed artist in his own right, Léonce still favors the use of medium format films and natural daylight, to create unearthly images that capture Benin’s ever evolving cultural zeitgeist. In essence, Agbodjelou's œuvre, interprets the experiences of a nation caught between tradition and progress.

Léonce grew up deeply immersed in the spiritual liturgy. He holds countless childhood memories of holidays spent observing his mother’s extended family of Gèlèdé master-artisans, being surrounded by cohorts of ethereal works of art and tenets of worship for playmates, which gradually began to cross-pollinate his visual narrative and form to this day, an intrinsic part of his holistic practice.

Agbodjelou initially garnered critical acclaim with the now famed photographic series "Egungun", "The Muscle Men" and "Les Demoiselles de Porto-Novo".  In his latest body of work, the modern master pays a vibrant homage to the cult of Zangbeto, one of Benin's most pivotal animist entities.

In Ogu culture, the Zangbetos, who form a secret society which is strictly attended by fellow Zangbetos, spiritual worshipers or devotees, are deemed to hold spiritistic and magical abilities, allowing them to dodge weapons, swallow splinters of glass or metal without coming to harm and even scare away evil witches.

The Cult of Zangbeto is said to evoke the cosmic energy and primordial powers that inhabited the earth long before the appearance of man, ultimately providing a source of wisdom and continuity not just for Ogu people but perhaps humanity at large.  

Read Full Biography

The creative practice of visual artist Nathanaël Vodouhè, provides a catharsis of sorts to the tragedy of human alienation.

Young, gifted with a sharp mind, a steady hand and an innate ability for sketching, Vodouhè commands a creative corpus of incomparable poetry, yet one that bares apparent the uncomfortable deviances plaguing the history of mankind.

Vodouhè's arresting visual narrative, brings into play polarizing emotions like kindness & cruelty, or dogmatic stances on good vs evil, light vs darkness or intemporality vs finality. Seemingly interacting in harmony, upon closer look, these emphatic dichotomies denounce in fact, the sins of a modern society trapped in a race against itself, evermore concerned with mass production, the accumulation of material possessions and generating profits, at any cost, even if it means consuming our inherent humanity from the inside out.

As if rIsing from the magmatic pools of alien volcanos, these totemic entities are the reincarnations of scorched souls. Enthralled in parts, baring ashen cracks and adorned with imperial cloaks of shimmering pigmentations, each ethereal sculpture is hinting at the fuming wounds inflicted by the harshness of a modern world that too often undermines the symbiotic beauty of human interrelations and instead chooses to destroy its environment.

Vodouhè’s modern masterpieces further interrogate us on notions of addiction, doctrinal conundrums, mass consumerism and the hypertensions resulting from the exploitation of man upon his own kind.

Encompassing the mediums of painting, sculpture, installation and performance, Voudouhè's body of work is imbued with the history, tradition and spiritual ordinance of his native Benin.

Within a mere decade, Wabi Dossou (31), has managed to establish him as one of the rising stars leading the 'Nouvelle Vague' of contemporary art in Benin, West Africa.

Heir to an illustrious family of sculptors, Wabi grew up in the company of a virtuoso. His late father, Amidou Dossou, received the art world's critical acclaim in 1989, at the legendary exhibition 'Magicians of The Earth' which took place at Le Centre Pompidou, in Paris. 

The creed  of The Dossou Family is rooted in the cultural ideologies of Fon & Yorùbá, linked through history and tradition to the Kingdom of Dahomey. Dating back to the mid-18th century, in the sovereign state of Kétou, the Gèlèdé sacred rites are lavish multimedia operas, performed to this day, in the popular genre of the ‘Masquerade’, honouring "Ìyá Nlá", the primordial Orisha spirit and Mother of all creations in Yorùbá cosmology. The oral tradition of Gèlèdé, one of West Africa’s crown jewels, is inscribed by UNESCO on the List of Humanity’s Intangible Cultural Heritage.

Inheritor of both his father's talent and mastery, Wabi still lives and works in Covè, the cradle of Gèlèdé, located in the southeastern part of Benin, halfway between Abomey and Kétou. His legacy is thus part of a secular tradition that appeals to fundamental Yorùbá aesthetic canons, which the artist transfigures with breathtaking innovation. 

Now leading his own practice, Wabi Dossou brings new meaning to the historical tradition of Gèlèdé. Bold, beautiful yet caustic in their wit and humour, his 'Diverted Objects' speak to a form of higher art. Through an ingenious neo expressionist subterfuge, these incomparable hybrid sculptures cross-pollinate the paragons of high fashion, music, pop culture and street art. Each interrogates us on notions of memory preservation, capitalism sustainability and mass-consumerism.

Emancipated from their ritual function, Wabi's ethereal masterpieces are immersed in contemporaneity. Favouring aesthetic to function, each hybrid gem remains nonetheless the carrier of an important message about the rich historical traditions of Benin and a creative legacy that is peering into the future.

Gèlèdésque !