Ouattara Watts Born in 1957 in Abidjan, Ivory Coast. Ouattara Watts lives and works in New York, USA and in Abidjan, Ivory Coast. Education : École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris, France “My vision is not bound to a country or a continent; it extends beyond borders and all that can be found on a map. While I use identifiable pictorial elements to be better understood, this project is nevertheless about something much wider. I am painting the Cosmos.” Ouattara Watts Through vibrant colors, dynamic shapes, and hypnotic signs and symbols, Ouattara Watts explores the spiritual bonds that transcend geography and nationality. By merging found objects, photographs, and raw materials, Watts’ paintings invoke the artist’s multicultural identity and offer various levels of readings, socially and historically. With lyricism and wit, Watts conjures imaginary worlds and magical visions, both urban and ancestral, to contemplate the metaphysical relationships between beings. In the early 1990s, Ouattara Watts left Ivory Coast to settle to the United States. He has been living in New York for thirty years and has now the American nationality. Before Looking At this Work, Listen to It at Galerie Cécile Fakhoury - Abidjan is his first solo show in Ivory Coast and symbolises the artist’s return to his home country. Since the beginning of his carrier, Ouattara Watts has exhibited in prominent exhibitions namely Afriques Capitales in Paris, Documenta 11 in Kassel, Body of Evidence at the National Museum of African Art, at the Smithsonian Institute of Washington and in The Short Century : Independence and Liberation Movement in Africa, 19451994 at MoMa PS1 in New York. His works were also presented in the frame of the Whitney Biennial in New York and the Venice Biennale in Italy.
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