Please note this lot is the property of a private individual.
Provenance
Jack Bell Gallery, London Acquired from the above by the present owner in 2013
Catalogue Essay
'The place of children in my work is very important, in that it is these children I love the most, who inspire me, and who are at the foundation of what I create.' - Aboudia
Executed in 2013, the present work was created in Aboudia’s studio in the Ivory Coast during the civil war. Untitled depicts a mother and child, an unusual subject for the artist, against a backdrop of paper collage and detritus, unveiling images from advertising and print media which form the visual architecture of day-to-day life. Perhaps autobiographical in nature, the present work conveys the loss of innocence endured by children in war. Containing a number of reoccurring motifs evident in Aboudia’s work, we see a car in the lower left of the composition, which was acquired during the artist’s early success. This vehicle, symbolic to his artistic journey, represents the start of Aboudia’s relocation to a bigger studio, before eventually setting up a base in New York. Responding to the struggles of warfare, the artist’s oeuvre is a testament to the chaos that propels his subjects, defining his distinctive visual style.