Barthelemy Toguo is a precursor and someone we have admired the works for a long time. The opportunity to be introduced to him happened luckily through a common friend. We knew what we wanted – Toguo’s representation of hybrids of humans and plants is closely connected to our interest in representation of plants in art. We mentioned to Toguo our appreciation of his work shown in the Homo Planta exhibition organized by the famed collector Jean-Paul Blachere. Barthelemy very kindly found in his archives a related work that he exhibited in Secret Evidence with Robert Grunenberg gallery the same year. Of his work, Toguo said: “The palm tree is represented as a protector, like an umbrella, a tree of peace, a tree of nourishment”.
