Born in 1968 in Bafang, Cameroon, Hako Hankson now lives and works in Douala. Self-taught artist, Hako, whose real name is Gaston Hako, was expecting a different future. However, he chooses the paint and the elements that forged his youth. Holder of a technician’s patent in automobile mechanics, from the primary classes, he can not help but decorate his classrooms. Hako indeed grew up under the influence of the art and cultures of the sources of his country.

His father, first notable of his village, was one of the greatest notables of Cameroon in addition to being a sculptor and musician at the Royal Palace. Hako was therefore brought up surrounded by objects from the initiation rites: masks, statuettes, totems, etc. used by his father. These sources of inspiration, inserted meticulously into his work, plunge us into the magical universe of the characters of the tales and praises of his ancestors, thus brushing the limit which separates profane and sacred. Hako also takes a look at the duality between tradition and contemporaneity and thus invites us to question “the ashes” of our past in order to draw from it, and above all to redefine, our Africanity.