Aboudia (B. 1983)

Ivorian painter Aboudia draws on the political upheaval of his native country to conjure animatedly phantasmagorical visions in paint and crayon, invigorated with life and intensity. Against a frenetic background of polychromatic, jittering textual fragments and figurative doodles, Aboudia introduces three Basquiatesque figures. Two children, clothed in vivid hues of azure and lime and presented with a feline companion, gaze wildly out of the picture plane, their unfocused expressions shattering their own hallucinatory atmosphere. Aboudia’s work was produced against a volatile backdrop of political disorder, soundtracked by gunfire during the electoral cataclysm in 2011. His depiction of youth is a fundamental thematic product of this turmoil, with Aboudia proclaiming that ‘I'm an ambassador of the children - they do writings on the walls, their wishes, their fears, I'm doing the same on my canvas. I'm like a megaphone for these children’ (Aboudia, ‘The Battle for Abidjan’, https://www.dazeddigital.com/artsandculture/article/10857/1/the-battle-for-abidjan [accessed 26 July 2017]). Exploring themes relating to the tempestuous socio-economic tapestry of the Ivory Coast, Aboudia gives a crucial voice to inhabitants suppressed by war and revolution.