Angèle Etoundi Essamba

Born in Douala, Cameroon, in 1962, photographer Angèle Etoundi Essamba now lives in The Netherlands, where she has a studio. At age nine Essamba moved to Paris with her father and several other siblings. She attended school at the Lyceum in Paris, where she received a philosophy degree. However, it was dance and photography that excited her, and with the encouragement of her Dutch husband she enrolled in the Fotovakschool in Amsterdam. Since her first show at Amsterdam's Galerie Art Collective in 1984, Essamba has had extensive participation in solo and group exhibitions in Europe, Africa, Cuba, and the United States. Essamba is a renowned, multitalented artist who has appeared on television and radio. She has been in several internationally-known publications, and in 1988 she published Passion, a book of photographs and accompanying poetry in Dutch, French, and English. In June, 1995, Essamba published with Indigo Galleries Inc. (her US-based representative) a suite of 10 black-and-white photographs entitled White Line. Most recently, Essamba won the "Le Prix Special Afrique" of 1996/1997 at the Festival des Trois Continents in Nantes, France. Although the human figure is central to her work, she is particularly concerned with the representations of Black women. Much of her work reflects on the many aspects of the lives of Black women, from the mystical to the erotic. Essamba, who is a dancer, philosopher, poet, lecturer, designer, and author, celebrates Black women's experiences through the poetry and motion reflected in her photographs.