Kodjovi Joey Tessi

Tessi Kodjovi is a visual artist who lives and works in Lomé, Togo. Tessi experiments mainly with wood and iron and is influenced by collectively shared questions such as: Who are we? How do we coexist within the geographical and temporal frames? How do we restore faith within our systems? How do we create new languages? These questions are not new; they find physical expressions in Tessi’s own way of providing answers.

Tessi Kodjovi took his first steps towards art through his father, a visual artist whose works he has grown to find too studious. Tessi explored catalogues and visited exhibitions at the French Institute of Lomé and is aware of local and international practices but rejects the scholar approach to education. He drops out of university as obtaining a degree felt like a complicit abandonment to the world and its inequalities.

While refusing academia, the artist started activating a body of knowledge based on dialogue and experimenting with raw materials. During a residence in Benin led by Ludovic Fadairo, Tessi gets sensitive to the importance of conversation with the medium. He mends pieces of various fabrics to juxtapose anxieties and joys. Back to Togo, his encounter with Tete Camille Azankpo and his body of works was a trigger: a third dimension must be brought out of the material. It is the start of sculpture making with papier mâché for Tessi. He also takes part in the OFF program of the 13th Dakar biennale where meetings with El Hadj Sy sparkle thinkings on how to best contextualise ideas.

Ultimately, Tessi gave up paper to create a dialogue between wood and iron. Wood and its burning process allows him to question time. With iron, he can weld issues. Iron and wood through pressure and heat become elongated statues, modular boxes, vividly expressive busts and everyday shapes bringing answers to the third dimension Tessi Kodjovi conceptualizes. Tessi’s journey to his own artistic language is a travel to one’s inner world through experiential knowledge. It is a journey to what could, perhaps, be considered as essential to the human.