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About

Oussou paints exclusively on black paper and favours large-scale formats. The paintings showcase his distinctively gestural style with drips, scratches, splatters and calligraphic marks. Distorted figures, faces, objects and symbols float freely against the dark background of the paper. Much of the work in this exhibition was inspired by drawings and scriptures Oussou observed in his immediate environment, such as charcoal wall doodles made by playing children in his hometown of Allada, Benin; and chalk markings recording remittances on the walls of his grandfather’s atelier. Oussou is interested in commonplace, everyday life drawings – the kind that is barely noticeable yet ubiquitous, and highlights drawing’s nature as a universal human endeavour, a shared visual language of expression.