Cape Town Art Fair 2018: Yéanzi

Cape Town International Convention Center 16 - 18 February 2018 
Cape Town International Convention Center https://www.investeccapetownartfair.co.za/

For its second participation in Cape Town Art Fair, the gallery presents a solo show by the Ivorian artist Yéanzi.

Living and working in Bingerville, near Abidjan, this rural environment is his studio : here, he collects stories, which he later reinterprets within his works. From 2013 onwards he has focused on his own distinctive style using melted plastic. This method enables him to alter his relationship with portraiture and create paintless paintings of the people that surround him in his daily life.


He records sequences, in which he frames gazes, attitudes and bodies in motion. He focuses to the latter’s personality which is expressed through dialogue. For this young generation, the use of a nickname is systematic : districts are named Berlin, Vietnam, Beverly Hills, as a reflect of this free and creative spirit, which is related to remote territories and fantasised references that reach through to and echo one another within each enclaved area.

This pseudo identity is like a mask, a cover. It is a lie of hope, which holds all the aspirations and dreams, from banality to a desire of singularity.