Ouattara Watts
Apr 3, 2015–May 5, 2015
Opening Reception: Apr 9, 2015, 11 a.m. – 7 p.m.
Galerie Fabien Boulakia, 10 avenue Matignon Paris, 75008 France
Opus No 1, Magic Man, 1996.
About:
With vibrant colors, dynamic shapes, and hypnotic signs and symbols, Ouattara Watts explores the spiritual bonds that transcend geography and nationality.
Prime Time, 1996.
Watts first made his mark on the New York art scene with a highly acclaimed debut solo show at Gagosian Gallery that the New York Times praised as “exhilarating” and “a knockout.” His work incorporates cryptic ideograms, religious and multicultural symbols, numeric and scientific equations, and floating abstractions. Merging objets trouvés, photography, and other media, Watts’s paintings invoke the artist’s multinational identity to invite diverse social and historical readings.
In recent work presented at Documenta, the Whitney Biennial, and PS1 Contemporary Art Center, Watts integrates signs and symbols from spiritual literature to articulate a complex international sensibility. He has developed a wide vocabulary of symbols and forms—ranging from visual to linguistic, numeric, and scientific—with which he communicates his dynamic vision. With lyricism and wit, Watts conjures imaginative worlds and magical visions, both urban and ancestral, to contemplate the metaphysical relationship between the individual and his environment.
“My vision is not based on any country or continent; it’s beyond geography or what can be seen on a map. Even though my pictorial elements can be located, so they can be better understood, this is about something much wider. My paintings refer to the Cosmos.” —Ouattara Watts
About Ouattara Watts:
Wanted, 2008.
Born in the Ivory Coast, Ouattara Watts studied at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris. There he met fellow artist and friend Jean-Michel Basquiat, who encouraged Watts to move to New York. Ouattara Watts has exhibited internationally, including at Documenta 11 in Kassel; the Whitney Biennial in New York; the Venice Biennale; the Hess Collection in Paarl, California; and the New Museum in New York. His work was included in Body of Evidence at the National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C., and The Short Century: Independence and Liberation Movements in Africa, 1945–1994 at MoMA PS1 in New York. Watts currently lives and works in New York City.(press text Alliance Française, New York, 2013)
