‘I wanted to show their suffering, their way of life so that people are finally aware of this painful reality they pretend not to see’.
Armand Boua was born in 1976 in Ivory Coast.
He studied at the National School of Fine Arts and the Technical Centre for Applied Arts, both in Abidjan.
The violence that followed the disputed Ivorian presidential election in late 2010 greatly influenced Boua’s work. The artist represents in his works the street kids of his hometown in powerful portraits that testify the violence and political struggles in West Africa. He wanted to show the lives of these street children in a way that not so many people can relate to.
Boua is noted for his textured and layered compositions, using tar and acrylic on found cardboard boxes. Each layer is applied and then scrubbed and stripped back, leaving abstract forms that come in and out of focus. Boua shows a careful balance between his heavy gestures and violent execution and the gentle treatment of his subject matter.
