Ouattara Watts

Cavaliero Fine Arts, New York (acquired from artist in 1993)
Acquired from the above by present owner in 2015

Venice, Fusion: West African Artists at the Venice Biennale, June 1993
New York, The Museum for African Art, 1994

Thomas McEvilley, Fusion: West African Artists at the Venice Biennale, The Museum for African Art, New York and Prestel, Munich, 1993, illustrated p. 75 & 79.
Adi Martis; Mieke Rijnders, Expressionisme en primitivisme in de beelden Kunst van de twintigste eeuw, Open Universiteit, Heerlen, 1998; illustrated p. 234. Cited p. 233 & 234.

There are multiple regions of craquelure and associated surface loss visible throughout, consistent with the painting medium. There is a crack measuring 8 cm along the bottom edge of the left yellow portion, and two more each less than 5 cm further up. Surface loss is visible along the middle edge where the top and bottom parts of the work meet. The exposed and bare wooden plants show some surface scratches and marks which may be artist intent.
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Masada is a large-scale mixed media by Ivorian artist Ouattara Watts (b. 1957) known for his paintings exploring African cosmology. Watts’ love for jazz, alchemy, cosmos, human relationships, and numbers are common themes in his work.

This large mixed media work was made shortly after Watts moved to New York, following an encounter with Jean-Michel Basquiat. The artists met in 1988 at Basquiat’s exhibition opening in Paris, and Basquiat insisted on visiting Watt’s studio, where he bought a painting that night. Basquiat was a keen supporter of Watt’s work and convinced him to move to New York, where they worked together briefly before Basquiat’s death.

On their shared interest Watts writes, ‘Like Keith[Haring] and Jean-Michel, the spiritual side keeps me going, it’s a way of being and living. The human relationships, that of the artist and the cosmos. Jean-Michel exhibited work in the Ivory Coast in 1986 [in Abidjan, at the French Cultural Centre] and that was my parent’s region. And I think it was here that he saw this spiritual side in me’. (Clotilde Scordia, ‘Ouattara Watts: Mystical Storyteller’, Happening, 2015)

Ouattara Watts has been exhibited at MoMA PS1, the Whitney Biennale, and the New Museum in New York, Magazzino d’Arte Moderna, Galeria Leyendeker, The Hood Museum of Art, Leo Koenig Gallery, Baldwin Gallery, The Kemper Museum, Gagosian Gallery, and Documenta in Kassel, Berkeley Museum, to name a few.