The journey toward an artistic language is ultimately a journey inward, where experimentation, material, and dialogue reveal what is essential to the human experience.
Born in 1974, Tessi Kodjovi is a contemporary visual artist who lives and works in Lomé, Togo. Working primarily with wood and iron, his practice is shaped by collective and existential questions: Who are we? How can we coexist within the geographical and temporal spaces we inhabit? How do we restore trust in our systems? How do we create new forms of communication and new spaces? What kind of legacy do we leave to future generations? These enduring questions find physical expression through sculptures that investigate memory, transformation, and the human condition.
Tessi's first encounter with art came through his father, a visual artist whose approach he eventually considered too academic. Although he immersed himself in exhibition catalogues and regularly visited exhibitions at the French Institute of Lomé, developing an awareness of both local and international artistic practices, he rejected conventional institutional education. Believing that formal qualifications represented a passive acceptance of global inequalities, he chose to leave university and instead pursue an independent artistic path.
Rejecting traditional academic training, Tessi developed his own body of knowledge through direct experimentation and dialogue with materials. During an artist residency in Benin led by Ludovic Fadairo, he discovered the importance of allowing conversation with the medium itself to shape the creative process. By stitching together fragments of fabric, he juxtaposed personal anxieties and moments of joy, using the act of making as a means of resolving internal questions. From this experience emerged a principle that continues to guide his practice: action precedes subject.
Upon returning to Togo, his encounter with the work of Tété Camille Azankpo marked a decisive turning point. Inspired to liberate material into three-dimensional form, he began experimenting with papier-mâché sculpture before participating in the OFF programme of the 13th Dakar Biennale. Encounters with artists including El Hadji Sy further deepened his reflections on the ways ideas can be expressed and contextualized. For Tessi, art became both a language of communication and a means of social engagement.
Over time, his practice evolved from paper to wood, seeking a closer relationship with the material's origin and history. Iron was later introduced, allowing him to combine the transformative qualities of both materials. Wood, particularly through burning, became a means of reflecting on time, while iron enabled him to symbolically weld together fractures, memories, and human experience. Through pressure, heat, and transformation, these materials become elongated figures, modular constructions, expressive busts, and sculptural forms that embody his ongoing exploration of material freedom.
Today, Tessi Kodjovi's practice represents an ongoing search for an artistic language grounded in communication, experimentation, and material knowledge. His sculptures invite reflection on what it means to be human while exploring the relationships between memory, transformation, and our shared existence.