Armand Boua

To explore an exhibition by Armand Boua is to dive into the vibrant and at times violent contemporary street life of Abidjan. Abstract silhouettes are welcoming us. They will accompany us from one everyday life scene to another. Their faces lack details, nevertheless they stare at us intensely and stand before us with the placidity of those who have seen and lived everything. Yet, some of them are youngster, just out of their childhood spent in the streets where Armand Boua met them and where they are used to spend time together. The dazzling quality of Armand Boua's paintings conceals the long creative work at stake. Each of the painting is made of several layers of material - newspapers, cardboard, papers - which are gathered by the artist, glued together and painted before being washed and brushed in a cathartic gesture. Armand Boua is taking inspiration from his daily life, nurturing his practice with the human encounters he experiences. His choice of a rather abstract representation of characters, ethereal shapes of silhouettes, enables him to take distance with the immediacy of denunciation process to inscribe his practice in a universal geography and temporality open to multiple readings. Under the artist's hand, street becomes an epic field of representation. Composition and close framing give Armand Boua's paintings a photographic dimension. Caught in action, those silhouettes painted in black are surrounded by colorful halos resembling powerful auras as if revealed in negative thus creating a vibrant and blurred atmosphere hallucinatory visions can emerge from. ...

Galerie Cecile Fakhoury opened its doors in Abidjan, Ivory Coast in September 2012. In May 2018, the gallery inaugurated its second space in Dakar, Senegal and a showroom in Paris, France. Shortly after, in March 2020, a new project space dedicated to emerging artists from Africa opened in Abidjan. In October 2021, Galerie Cecile Fakhoury inaugurated another gallery, opening in the 8th arrondissement of Paris on Avenue Matignon. The gallery promotes contemporary art from Africa and the Diaspora by providing visibility to the artistic diversity and creative spirit from the continent. Through its programming of solo and group exhibitions, participation in international art fairs, biennales, and collaboration with international galleries, Cecile Fakhoury is a leading force putting contemporary African art on the global map. The artists represented by the gallery are distinguished by their cultural identities and stories, they create a new language that crosses geographical boundaries and familiarities. They are observers of the world they live in, critics of society, and committed to their positions living within complex histories. In turn, they ask us to reconsider our own relation to the world. ...