Born in Cameroon’s Far North, William Bakaimo is a visual artist whose practice spans painting, drawing, and mixed media. Drawing from West African traditions, personal mythology, and contemporary realities, his work weaves ancestral memory, environmental concern, and hybrid forms—human, animal, and spirit—into compositions that are both ancient and urgently present. Committing fully to painting in 2017, Bakaimo embraces continual transformation, embodied by the recurring motif of the lizard: identity forged through adaptation. His work has been exhibited internationally, including in Paris, Vilnius, Yaoundé, Montpellier, and Abidjan.
William Bakaimo (born in Cameroon) is a visual artist working in painting, drawing, and mixed media. He lives and works in Cameroon.
Born in the Far North region of the country, Bakaimo began drawing at an early age, selling handmade greeting cards to classmates while still in secondary school. He initially pursued studies in private and business law, alongside a diploma in design engineering and fine arts from the Institut Supérieur du Sahel in Maroua. In 2017, he committed fully to painting—a decisive shift he describes as his first mue, or shedding.
His practice draws on West African visual traditions, personal mythology, and the lived realities of his region, weaving together ancestral memory, environmental concern, and the precarious conditions of contemporary life. Hybrid figures—part human, part animal, part spirit—populate compositions that feel at once ancient and urgently present. The lizard, a recurring motif, encapsulates his philosophy of continual transformation: identity forged through adaptation rather than fixed inheritance.
Bakaimo cites Jean-Michel Basquiat alongside Cameroonian artists Joël Mpah Dooh and Hako Hankson as key influences. His work has been exhibited internationally, including at AKAA Art Fair, Paris (2023); Totema Gallery, Vilnius (2023); Galerie Claire Corcia, Paris (2020, 2021); Le Réservoir, Montpellier (2023); Institut Français du Cameroun, Yaoundé (2023); and Abidjan Art Fair (2021).