African artist's self-portraits will go on display for the first time in UK at National Portrait Gallery

Dozens of self-portraits by African artist Samuel Fosso are going on show for the first time in Britain.

He started taking them as a teenager in the Central African Republic four decades ago, to use up film in his camera.

The exhibition, at the National Portrait Gallery, will also include pictures from SIXSIXSIX, his collection of self-portraits taken over two months in 2015.

Fosso has previously said the pictures where he takes on different characters allow him "to escape myself".

He said: "In all my works, I am both character and director. I don’t put myself in the photographs. My work is based on specific situations and people I am familiar with, things that I desire and things that I draw up in my imagination and which, then, I interpret. I borrow an identity."

Samuel Fosso: Self-Portraits is in Room 41 and 41a of the National Portrait Gallery from tomorrow to September 24.