Pris au piège !
Text: Yves Xavier Ndounda Ndongo
Artistic Direction: Francine Abada
Published on September 13, 2024
Lauriane Yougang operates within a space of multiple tensions, caught between patriarchal traditions, judicial upheavals, and an urgent quest for individual freedoms. As an awakened artist, she uses creation as a ground for resistance and exploration. Her approach to the human face, central to her artistic practice, is deliberate: she seeks to reveal, beyond features and expressions, a deeper, raw, universal truth. The face thus becomes a place of unveiling, showing what humanity can offer in its most genuine and sincere form.

Exhibition Pris au piège by Lauriane Yougang (Goethe-Découverte 2023) at Abali Gallery, Yaounde. From December 2 to 30, 2023. © Photo by Yvon Ngassam.

Exhibition Pris au piège (Goethe-Découverte 2023) at Abali Gallery, Yaoundé. From December 2 to 30, 2023. © Photo by Yvon Ngassam.

Exhibition Pris au piège (Goethe-Découverte 2023) at Abali Gallery, Yaoundé. From December 2 to 30, 2023. © Photo by Yvon Ngassam.

Exhibition Pris au piège (Goethe-Découverte 2023) at Abali Gallery, Yaoundé. From December 2 to 30, 2023. © Photo by Yvon Ngassam.

Exhibition Pris au piège (Goethe-Découverte 2023) at Abali Gallery, Yaoundé. From December 2 to 30, 2023. © Photo by Yvon Ngassam.

Exhibition Pris au piège (Goethe-Découverte 2023) at Abali Gallery, Yaoundé. From December 2 to 30, 2023. © Photo by Yvon Ngassam.

Exhibition Pris au piège (Goethe-Découverte 2023) at Abali Gallery, Yaoundé. From December 2 to 30, 2023. © Photo by Yvon Ngassam.

Winner of the Goethe Découverte 2023 in visual arts, Lauriane stands out with a hybrid aesthetic, rich in African cultural references, notably those from the Sao civilization. She blends these ancient heritages with contemporary techniques, which she handles with a unique sensitivity. In her works, material becomes language, each texture a voice, each detail a fragment of social narrative. She paints, sculpts, weaves, assembles, and composes the portrait of a society in tension—a world where appearances mask a depth often neglected or even denied.
For Lauriane, art is not just a means of expression but a path toward healing. Faced with absurdity and prevailing disorder, she offers a response based on openness to spirituality, intuition, and the innate generosity of women. She sees in this capacity for care, nurture, and giving a powerful lever to rise above social turmoil. Through her work, she calls for a reconnection to the essential, a return to what is most luminous in humanity. In doing so, Lauriane does not merely denounce; she proposes, with strength and poetry, ways to reinvent a fairer and more sensitive future.

Exhibition Pris au piège (Goethe-Découverte 2023) at Abali Gallery, Yaoundé. From December 2 to 30, 2023. © Photo by Yvon Ngassam.

Exhibition Pris au piège (Goethe-Découverte 2023) at Abali Gallery, Yaoundé. From December 2 to 30, 2023. © Photo by Yvon Ngassam.

Exhibition Pris au piège (Goethe-Découverte 2023) at Abali Gallery, Yaoundé. From December 2 to 30, 2023. © Photo by Yvon Ngassam.

Exhibition Pris au piège (Goethe-Découverte 2023) at Abali Gallery, Yaoundé. From December 2 to 30, 2023. © Photo by Yvon Ngassam.

Exhibition Pris au piège (Goethe-Découverte 2023) at Abali Gallery, Yaoundé. From December 2 to 30, 2023. © Photo by Yvon Ngassam.