Cameroonian painter Marc Padeu is reshaping the visual language of European Renaissance art by placing it within the everyday world of Cameroon’s cocoa plantations. Currently showing at London’s Larkin Durey Gallery, his work reinterprets classical religious scenes—drawing from artists like Velázquez and Caravaggio—using Cameroonian subjects and settings. Padeu, who studied at Cameroon’s first fine arts school and once painted church murals, says his goal isn’t to fuse African and Western imagery but to root universal human themes—birth, sacrifice, hope—in the world he knows best. Influenced by American painter Kerry James Marshall, Padeu focuses on restoring Black figures to art history rather than simply inserting them into it. Through his art, he hopes to challenge assumptions about what belongs in the Western canon versus everyday African life.