The shop art of Benin

Although modern forms of art and design are being used more and more, the traditional hand painted signs for shops are still common in much of Africa. Benin has largely retained the distinctly African style of commercial shop painting developed during the last century, whereas in Ivory Coast for example, you see a lot more work that seeks to portray people and objects in an overtly realistic fashion, as is more typical in the West. Although some would describe the…

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More shop art from Burkina Faso

The wonders of African shop art. I may be in a small group of weirdo aficionados of African shop art but I can’t get enough of it so here are a few more examples from Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, for my fellow weirdos. This was certainly enough to convince me I had to buy a beer in this bar The art form always has to catch up with new technology, though it has to be said that solar panels provide little…

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