Untitled

A leading figure in the Ivory Coast’s vibrant art and music scene, Turay Mederic fuses aspects of neo-Expressionism, tribal art and graffiti in his vibrant collaged and painted works. Fascinated from an early age by artists such as Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí and Jean-Michel Basquiat, he has developed a cross-disciplinary style that he refers to as sculpeinture, bringing aspects of painting and sculpture together. He uses a wide range of media, and has even been known to paint using a glaze made from coffee, a major export of his country. A former nominee for Best Rap Artist at the Ivory Coast MTV Music Awards, he is concerned with telling the story of Africa through a distinctly modern idiom. ‘I have those two combinations of cultures struggling in my soul’, he says. ‘I think my paintings reflect that because you can see something very African in them, but also a very contemporary style, like street art’. The present work’s expressive, grimacing head is painted in vivid acrylic hues upon a lively collage of text and image, conjuring the energetic chaos of the urban environment.