Our Projects

I draw with biro. A common, everyday pen. Cheap, imperfect, and often overlooked. In my hands, it becomes a tool for slowness, sensitivity, and intense presence. Every mark I make is final. It can’t be undone so it forces me to be deliberate, to listen, to respond to the image as it builds. Mistakes are not hidden. They are part of the drawing’s memory. Growing up in Cameroon, I was surrounded by creativity, but traditional materials like oil paints were very expensive and scarce. What I had access to was a biro. The same pen I used every day in school became the pen I used to draw. Over time, it stopped being just a writing tool and became something far more expressive. Its limits taught me focus and its simplicity taught me depth.

My technique is patient and layered. I build portraits and scenes through dense networks of lines, drawn in multiple directions. Sometimes they follow the curves of a face. Sometimes they resist them. The repetition of line creates vibration. It makes the surface feel alive, unstable, breathing. My drawings do not try to smooth over reality. They reveal its texture.The blue ink is more than a colour. It is emotional, vast, and open. It holds stillness, but also distance. Like the sky, or the sea, or silence. It allows the drawing to live somewhere between visibility and disappearance. You see the figure, but it also slips away. You look into the drawing, and the drawing looks back.

For me, the biro is also a metaphor. It is accessible. It reminds me that meaningful things can come from what is overlooked. I draw with it not just because it is available, but because it demands honesty. The process is quiet and slow. It resists spectacle. In a world that moves fast and speaks loud, I choose a tool that asks for patience.My drawings are a form of attention. To faces, to small details, to presence. What begins as line becomes a body. What begins as ink becomes memory. What begins as a cheap tool becomes something sacred.