Myriam Mihindou is a French-Gabonese artist who initially studied architecture and then enrolled for an arts degree at Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Bordeaux. Mihindou appreciates spaces and goes as far as embracing them. Furthermore, she believes her work is inspired by the places she visited to, lived in, her experiences, as well as the people she meets. Having lived in various parts of Africa, France; and the United States, it is safe to say her work is inspired by a variety of experiences from different cultures.
Being raised with a dual heritage, Mihindou is able to work on a universal language by combining the contemporary and the traditional. Her ability to work on the universal language is further promoted by the fact that she refuses to answer questions related to what artistic medium she belongs to, she believes it can limit what she can do.
Mihindou started working with sculpture and metal but was inspired by artists such as Joseph Beuys and Ana Mendieta to explore nature through ritualised actions. On the one hand Joseph Beuys’ work reflected concepts of humanism; sociology; and anthropology while Mendieta’s work reflected themes such as displacement due to transnationalism; feminism; life; identity; and place. Therefore, she began working with photography and performance too. As her work is highly autobiographical, it is themed around memory, identity, political and sexual body. Mihindou’s work falls within the principles of care art and it follows a deeply humanist urge which focuses on how bodies are affected by power struggles, oppression and violence – which makes up a few of the atrocities of humankind.
Between October and November 2007, the Galerie Peter Herrmann in Germany presented c-prints and a video by Myriam Mihindou. Her self-reflexive pictures deal with the female body and its representation.
This artist has done collective exhibitions including a showcase in The National Museum of African Art of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington. This shows collections of works of traditional and contemporary African art – and involves art from Sub-Saharan Africa. Other exhibitions Mihindou has been in, are the Halle Saint-Pierre in Paris in 2016, a solo exhibition in France also the Pablo-Picasso – La Guerre et la Paxis at Vallauris in 2018. Mihindou’s work aims to highlight vulnerability and the search for personal identity.
