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Lot Essay
Aboudia has steadily risen to a place of prominence as one of the most exciting contemporary painters from West Africa. Known for his bold, expressive paintings featuring a revolving cast of figures and his signature application of highly saturated colour. His work draws from local street art styles as well as influences from Jean-Michel Basquiat. The work is deeply connected to the idea of 'the street', as well as the ‘nouchi’ slang spoken by street youths in Abidjan, Ivory Coast. Street children remain a recurring motif in Aboudia’s work.
Growing up in Ivory Coast, Aboudia witnessed the violence of the Second Ivorian Civil War between 2010 and 2011. He decided to remain and paint in Abidjan during this period, the trauma of which is reflected in the skulls and haunted expressions that populate his canvases. He applies his paint with an urgent energy that makes them appear both vital and brutal.
Untitled, 2011 is an important diptych and a major work from Aboudia’s creative period during the Ivorian Civil War. The canvas is heavily worked and the paint is applied thickly. A strange assortment of characters stand alongside one another, some wearing peculiar fashions, each with a uniquely disturbed expression etched onto their faces. Around them the trappings of modern life: cars, clocks and graffiti tumble around them in a disordered fashion, as if chaotically fleeing. War, chaos and violence provide the psychological backdrop of this powerful series of work.
Aboudia works between New York City and Abidjan. His work has been exhibited at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, the Nevada Museum, The Saatchi Gallery and the Royal Academy. In 2012, he was invited to take part in a conference organised by the Goethe-Institut in South Africa on the role of art in time of war. He represented Ivory Coast at the 59th edition of the Venice Biennale in 2022. His work has entered several key private collections such as the CAAC Pigozzi Collection, the Frank Cohen Collection and the Saatchi Collection.
Growing up in Ivory Coast, Aboudia witnessed the violence of the Second Ivorian Civil War between 2010 and 2011. He decided to remain and paint in Abidjan during this period, the trauma of which is reflected in the skulls and haunted expressions that populate his canvases. He applies his paint with an urgent energy that makes them appear both vital and brutal.
Untitled, 2011 is an important diptych and a major work from Aboudia’s creative period during the Ivorian Civil War. The canvas is heavily worked and the paint is applied thickly. A strange assortment of characters stand alongside one another, some wearing peculiar fashions, each with a uniquely disturbed expression etched onto their faces. Around them the trappings of modern life: cars, clocks and graffiti tumble around them in a disordered fashion, as if chaotically fleeing. War, chaos and violence provide the psychological backdrop of this powerful series of work.
Aboudia works between New York City and Abidjan. His work has been exhibited at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, the Nevada Museum, The Saatchi Gallery and the Royal Academy. In 2012, he was invited to take part in a conference organised by the Goethe-Institut in South Africa on the role of art in time of war. He represented Ivory Coast at the 59th edition of the Venice Biennale in 2022. His work has entered several key private collections such as the CAAC Pigozzi Collection, the Frank Cohen Collection and the Saatchi Collection.