His expressive force and naive style have made the Ivorian artist, born Abdoulaye Diarrassouba, one of the world’s best-selling. In his paintings, we see the streets of Abidjan, the inequalities, the reaction to social unease.

There are not many adults who can look at the world through the eyes of a child. There are even fewer who can represent that world, as a child probably would, but with the awareness of the message they are transmitting. This is the artistic mystery, the stylistic figure of Aboudia, stage name of Abdoulaye Diarrassouba, an Ivorian born in 1983.
The style of his paintings, which he defines as “naïve”, has made him one of the best-selling painters in the world.
They are works inspired mostly by street children, by the street culture of his hometown, Abidjan and his country. “Brutally energetic paintings”, as someone has defined them, that blend innocence and spontaneity with a dark and painful interior world.

The artistic mystery, the stylistic figure of Aboudia, stage name of Abdoulaye Diarrassouba. Instagram

His works are tormented by traumas, starting with the Ivorian civil wars (2002-2011), resulting in soldiers, weapons, skulls, a threatened and frightened population, dark colours and strong brush strokes.
Aboudia’s works have an impact and attract; you seem to see an angry and traumatised child, precisely, who has been asked by a teacher/psychologist to throw out what is inside him. But there are also details, hidden references, even to spirituality and local culture, and each time you seem to catch a new one. His work today continues to address the theme of social discomfort, street life, inequalities, showing at the same time the strength and ability of his people to react.

“Brutally energetic paintings” that blend innocence and spontaneity with a dark interior world. Courtesy of African Contemporary

They are works that someone, at first glance, might define as “elementary”, that even a child could create. But it is in this sort of apparent naivety that the artist’s whole peculiarity lies. Making comparisons with Western artists who have made apparent simplicity their style would be a form of arrogance, the inability to recognise that view of the world and that unique brushstroke.
Aboudia himself states: “What makes my style recognisable, I can say, is this naive side: being an adult but working like a child”.
The art market, after all, recognised the power and singularity of his work. According to Artprice, Aboudia is currently ranked 1,311th in the ranking of the 5,000 best-selling artists at auction in the world, and in 2022, he was the contemporary artist who sold the most paintings (75) according to the Hiscox Top 100.

Aboudia says: “What makes my style recognisable, I can say, is this naive side: being an adult but working like a child”. Courtesy of African Contemporary

Aboudia studied art both at the Conservatory of Arts and Crafts in Abengourou, in eastern Côte d’Ivoire, and at the Technical Arts Centre in Bingerville, a suburb of Abidjan. But few took him seriously at first. Neither his father, who did not take his son’s inclinations seriously, nor other artists to whom he tried to submit his works, nor society, which probably saw him as strange as his art.
Aboudia remembers these difficulties well. And this is probably one of the reasons that pushed him to create a foundation that bears his name. The aim is to convey to children a taste for art, to give them the opportunity to paint their inner world.
Art is something natural, as a field of human expression, but also as a way to create relationships and avoid feeling alone. We would define him as a committed artist, a sort of activist with brushes and colours who sends deep messages without shouting and who, no one would have imagined, has contributed to removing from a sort of marginalising ghetto, a work ultimately signed “Africa”. (Open Photo: Courtesy of African Contemporary)

Antonella Sinopoli