Franck Kemkeng Noah (b. 1992), also known as KeNof, is a Cameroonian painter who lives and works in France. A prince of the Fontsa-Touala chiefdom, he reinterprets the iconography of the Bamileke of western Cameroon, and in 2022 his work was shown at the Musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac in Paris. His layered works merge realism and imagination to explore interculturalism, memory and identity, and extend into sculpture and installation.
Franck Kemkeng Noah (b. 1992, Yaoundé, Cameroon), also known as KeNof, is a Cameroonian painter who lives and works in France. He trained at the Institut de Formation Artistique in Mbalmayo and the Institut des Beaux-Arts de Foumban, and later, on a scholarship, completed a master’s degree in fine arts at the Université de Picardie Jules Verne in Amiens. A prince of the Fontsa-Touala chiefdom, he belongs to the Bamileke cultural group of western Cameroon, whose iconography he reinterprets from a contemporary perspective. His layered works merge realism and imagination and move between painting, sculpture, installation and interactive performance. Central to his practice are interculturalism, memory, identity and transmission – described in his artist profile as a fusion of cultures and the creation of “memory palaces”. In 2022 his work was included in the exhibition “On the Road to the Chiefdoms of Cameroon” at the Musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac in Paris, and in 2023 he had an exhibition and residency at the Texas Southern University Museum in Houston. His “Croyance” (“Belief”) series of 2019–2020 juxtaposes traditional spiritual imagery with references to European religious landmarks such as the Vatican and Notre-Dame de Paris. The painting “Croyance, protection of the chief 2” (2020), acrylic on canvas, 127.5 × 156.5 cm, offered by TUMO Gallery, belongs to this series.
