In college, it’s my drawing teacher from the 3rd class who gave me the taste of painting by teaching us the technique of mosaic on wet paper. I regret a little not having continued my personal training. At that time I was too focused to work on the “real matters” (as my father said) with large coefficients. 1 year ago I bought paint and Canson paper without ever finding the motivation to get back to it. Maybe one day…

You itgot , I have an affinity for painting (and all its derivatives) and I spend hours scrolling on Tumblr to discover artists. So today, in the creativity point, I’m talking about the artist Joshua Comoe.

 

The representation of Afro-descendants in France

A few months ago, in my digital wanderings, I came across a tweet-promo of Josué Comoe, a young visual artist from Côte d’Ivoire, who exhibited his work “La lutte” on that weekend in Paris. So I embarked K. for a small Sunday Brunch / Exhibition and we went to discover the work of this young talent promised to a bright future.

Josué Comoe is a graduate of the School of Decorative Arts in Paris and a model. It is the world of fashion that allowed him to question the problematic representation of Afro-descendants, and more broadly non-white people, in France: hyper-sexualisation and clichés from a racist imaginary. He makes the observation that having dark black skin, it is systematically asked him to shave the hair for example.

Awareness is slow but raw and he finally makes the choice to reclaim his body: he wears his natural hair in afro, refuses to be skin-lightened during photo editing. As a result, he has fewer castings and contracts but he accepts it. It is about being honest with oneself and one’s image.

 

The depth and sensitivity of Joshua Comoe’s paintings

I found Joshua Comoe‘s works both very subtle and very strong. One of those that can not be contemplated without returning to fundamental questions of “who am I?” “Where am I going?” “with whom?”.

I had several favorites:

The albino child: This is the first time I see a painting representing an albino person so realistically with attention to detail. Why is he suffering? What is our view of albino people?

The hairdressing session: Memories of childhood then young woman, the hairdressing session is a moment of intimacy that immediately echoed in me.

As you can see, I enjoyed this exhibition by Joshua Comoe and I warmly invite you to follow his work josuecomoe.tumblr.com.

He is currently working on a new series so Stay Tuned!

Besos!

L.