Kassou Seydou's painting is a writing in the world. Each canvas is a mysterious narration, a depiction of an ideal world that the artist envisions. Each painting is an allegory wherein a series of symbols from various cultures, temporalities and geographies coexist. Put together, these symbols are matching and form the structural elements of the artist's grammar. As if they were the foundations of a visual language, graphic lines dress the background of the painting up. Their curvilinear patterns, endlessly declined, are signs of the creative ecstasy which gave them birth. They are driving us to the limits of hypnosis.
Kassou Seydou is conceiving each work as an ideal macrocosm: he places harmony between human and nature at the heart of a peaceful society. Colours, often bright, sometimes earthly, are mixed in a meaningful combination. The characters inhabiting his paintings are interpretation keys as well as speakers. Generous giants, they are represented at work, farmers, merchants or metalworkers, or else in their daily environment the artist represents in an almost abstract way, as if to invite us to decipher and interpret it under contemporary issues such as natural ressources shortages or growing inequalities.
The presence of human figuration within a highly symbolical painting embodies Kassou Seydou's will to see human relations at the centre of fairer society. Tensions and changes visible in his characters bring up a tacit criticism of our contemporary global world. Attributes, ornaments and other fetishes stand for the artist's attachment to tradition and culture.
Image: Les bras croisés, 2018