Born in Cameroon in 1956, Joel Mpah Dooh lives and works in Douala. He graduated from the Municipal Conservatory of Fine Arts in Amiens, France. He has participated in several solo and group exhibitions in Africa and Europe (Vienna, 1992), in Los Angeles (1994), the international residency organized by Galerie Mai Ollivier (Paris) and Galerie MAM (Douala) Salo, Central African Republic in early 2000. He is interested in theater sets and television and has made several murals for the city of Douala. He has exhibited at Dak'Art 1998, 2000, 2007 on the initiative of Mam (Douala) and Atiss (Dakar) galleries. Joel Mpah Dooh also exhibited at the 2008 Biennale of Johannesburg (South Africa).

His first works on canvas offer filiform characters in postures expressing pain and seeking deliverance. Thereafter, he developed a writing that is similar to graffiti with a very urban writing. His experiments lead him to work in three dimensions, creating characters in dialogue with these early paintings, but that will embody these characters first. Designers of works on plexiglass light, he was invited in 2007 by the Foundation Blachère in Apt, France to inaugurate the cycle of residences "Art and Business". In 1992, he was the author of one of the first works offered by doual'art outside the city of Douala. In 1994, he cofounded the Kheops Club with is friend Koko Komegne.