OBOU GBAIS (Ivory Coast) | Boogie Woogie, 2021 | Oil on canvas, 150×150 cm

Sign: AD Obou

Obou Gbais (Painter Obou) (b. 1992) - a contemporary artist from the Ivory Coast.

The artwork was exhibited at the "Contemporary African Art: Dreams and Realities of Identity" exhibition at the Vytautas Kasiulis Art Museum (May 10, 2022 - October 09, 2022).

Reproduced in the catalog of the "Contemporary African Art: Dreams and Realities of Identity" exhibition, 2022, p. 40.

Under the guidance of artist Pascali Konan, O. Gbais completed art school in Abidjan in 2019. In 2017, his works were exhibited at the TART Gallery in Zurich, followed by Rotonde des Arts and Art-Time galleries in Abidjan. Since 2020, the artist has been participating in various art projects in France, Belgium, Switzerland, and Germany. In 2002, O. Gbais experienced the brutality of war in Africa, which led him to explore the fates of war victims in his artwork to this day. The main motif of his paintings is crowds of people; those who continue to live in the chaos of 21st-century Africa. The artist's compositions partially conceal the dark side of the characters, the disorder of the chaos, violence, attacks, and pain, but observant viewers can discern these elements in O. Gbais's works.