William Baikamo, Successfully Frees his "Inner Self"

William BAKAIMO is not one of those people whose personality can be known in 5 minutes and even 5 years would not be enough to determine him. From  the age of 5, he started drawing, building his own world to the point that when he reached secondary school he was already creating greeting cards that he sold to his classmates. Born in 1988 in Maroua (far north Cameroon), William Bakaimo first studied fundamental private law at the University of Ngaoundéré and finished with his master 1 before entering the Institut Supérieur du Sahel (ISS) in 2015 where he obtained his diploma of design engineer in Fine Arts option painting, two years later. Having participated in several art workshops including Buea, Yaoundé as part of UNIFAC, he was nominated second prize in 2012 in the drawing category at UNIFAC. His academic internships at the IN AND OFF ART CENTER with the artist HAko Hankson will guide him later to a particular artistic path. Very quickly he feels the need to fly on his own and opens his workshop which will become his production base. His work puts on stage the human being facing his challenges, his limits and his fears, that's why he has to change, metamorphose and even transform himself to transcend the difficult situations he faces on a daily basis. The mix of warm colors in his work metaphorically accompanies the life stories he tells. For him, humans, just like lizards and certain species of animals, also undergo moulting in order to grow and face the challenging situations of life. This is why his half-human, half-animal characters take on zoomorphic and chimerical aspects.

2017 and 2018 are pivotal years, those where he paints his first masterpieces, out of a school academicism. Those where he tries to free himself from his inner self, from this fear of not being able to adapt to the needs of the world, of not being able to adapt to the needs of the life. Then begins the great change, the transformation of the young man into an artist carrying many messages where hope prevails on the darkness. Very early he already has to his title a dozen exhibitions both in his country Cameroon and abroad. Some of thr places where he exhibited included, Galerie La Cryde, Aix en Provence,  Âge of Grâce, Joël Mpah Dooh, Georges Maky, Anne Caroff,Wemah art project, Douala, Métamorphoses nocturnes, Bolo l’espace art et culture, Doula and Journée d’art contemporain de Carthage, Carthage, Tunisie, just to name these very few.