Biography
Abdoulaye Diarrasouba aka ABOUDIA was born in 1983 in Abidjan in Ivory Coast. Today he lives between Asu (his hometown) and Brooklyn. In 2003 he graduated from the Technical Art Center of Applied Arts in Bingerville.
Aboudia was recognized in 2011 by critics for his works which bear witness to the violence that befell Côte d’Ivoire during the civil war and the numerous riots that take place after the presidential elections. His works are distributed throughout the world thanks to the photographs taken by Finbar O’Reilly for Reuters, and are very quickly exhibited at the Jack Bell gallery in London in 2012 and at the Cécile Fakhoury gallery in Abidjan in 2013, where he collaborates in particular with Ivorian artist Frédéric Bruly Bouabré. Her presence in the exhibition “Pangea II: New Art From Africa and Latin America” at the Saatchi Gallery in London in 2014 exhibits her alongside an emerging generation of young African and South American artists. His works are frequently presented in personal exhibitions in Abidjan, London, New York, Paris and Dakar. He created the Aboudia Foundation in Bingerville in 2018 to support children and young artists.
Unlike many Ivorian artists and intellectuals fleeing their country, Aboudia remains there despite the danger. His painting is thus logically marked by the political history of his country. We find in his painting different pictorial traditions, many children but far from idealized images of Africa. He paints in a naive and brutal way. The faces show us the amazement of these children in front of these scenes of violence. Aboudia is inspired by the graffiti drawn by young people on the walls in the streets of Abidjan, in particular the working-class neighborhoods of Abobo, Yopougon and Treichville. It is the mode of expression of young people and children who were left behind during the decade of civil war. Aboudia draws on the iconographic vocabulary of street art, exemplified in the years 1980-1990 in the United States by Jean Michel Basquiat. The production of the Ivorian artist translates, in fact, his cosmopolitanism. It is also a bridge between contemporary Western aesthetics and the issues of a changing African society.
Aboudia’s work is present in many collections, including that of the Saatchi Gallery in London, the Nevada Museum of Art in Reno in the United States, or the Tiroche DeLeon collection in Israel.
His last public sale record was set in March 2021 at Christie’s in London. A work from 2013 was sold for 189,000 euros.
