Pascal Konan: Artist Resume
While Konan grew up in harsh living conditions in Mossikro, a slum in Abidjan, he fondly remembers a happy childhood and a supportive environment where he could cultivate his gift for drawing and his passion for astronomy.
Both of his parents had a deep appreciation for the arts, and Konan’s home was filled with instrumental and vocal music. His father was a cabinet maker and an evangelist, and his mother, a cantor in their church. Every Sunday, they visited villages where his father preached and his mother sang, accompanied by a traditional orchestra…little Pascal carried the drum.
Despite their modest means and a family of 9, after noticing that Konan loved to draw, his father made sure he could spend every vacation with a local artist - named BP Konan! There he learned to materialize - with a brush on paper instead of twigs on dirt - what he saw and imagined.
When, on his first day of Sunday School, the teacher depicted Creation with drawings on the blackboard, Konan was able to visualize at once the universe. Fascinated, he started watching sci-fi movies such as Grandizer (or “Goldorak” in its French version). Seeing people fly into space and come back triggered in him the wish to discover beyond what he could see, and to become an astronaut. This deeply-held dream shattered a few years later when he was told that it was impossible to study astronomy in Côte d’Ivoire. Although his teachers thought he would still embrace a scientific career, Konan opted instead for the Art High School of Abidjan - if he couldn’t travel in space for real, he would travel in his imagination and represent what he experienced.
Konan’s fascination for the world - above and beyond, the seen and the unseen - is as vivid as ever today and permeates his work. Konan credits a large part of his artistic process to his precarious childhood. From a very young age, he was in “survival” mode - which he defines as “finding the means in one’s environment to reach one’s objectives.” Since kids like him did not receive presents, ride the merry-go-round, or wear new clothes, they gave a second life to what they found around them: they recycled and repurposed, taking apart and assembling broken bits to build their own toys. It was through these early experiences that Konan honed his curiosity, intuition, and fine motor skills – which would become the basis for his art education at the Art High School and the Ecole Nationale des Beaux-Arts (School of Fine Arts - INSAAC) in Abidjan, where he is a professor today.
Echoing the words of Paul Gauguin - “Where do we come from, who are we, where are we going?” - Konan's work embraces this great space-time voyage of ours, and reflects on where our actions, beliefs, and values take us. In the characters and scenes he depicts, he aims not only to touch at our essence and humanity, which takes shape through individual and collective actions, but also to ponder our social and environmental impact. He is particularly concerned with irresponsible urbanization, poor city management, and e-waste pollution, which he experienced firsthand when he lived in the harsh environment of Mossikro.
Konan’s visual world explodes with energy and contrast. Colors are juxtaposed with muted tones, light with shade, definite contours with blurred ones.
His latest series, which draws from his musical practice, has a lyrical power: a central character is caught in a whirlwind or surrounded by a multitude, represented in a realistic style reminiscent of the great masters of the Renaissance. These characters are sprawled across the artwork’s surface as if in space or on a musical score. With their movements borrowed from classical and contemporary dance, they evoke both a ballet and a symphony. For Konan, each one of us dances on a score with its own rhythm and length, but it’s when we come together that we forge our collective destiny.
Konan works on canvas with mixed media as well as on plywood with electronic components recovered from all kinds of discarded electronic devices (e-waste). For his canvases, he often uses denim, the dark support allowing him to create beautiful and powerful effects with bleach before applying acrylic paint. Both the bleach and the e-waste symbolize pollution and poor environmental management.
Art Education
2012 : Master II in Painting, Institut National Supérieur des Arts et de l'Action Culturelle (INSAAC), Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire
2004-2006 : Certification of Aptitude for Teaching Visual Arts (Certificat d’Aptitude Pédagogique pour l’Enseignement des Arts Plastiques - CAPEAS), INSAAC
2002-2004 : Diploma of Higher education in the Arts – Painting (Diplôme d’Etudes Supérieures Artistiques- Peinture), Valedictorian, Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Abidjan
2000-2002 : Diploma of General Art Studies (Diplôme d’Etudes Artistiques Générales), Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Abidjan
1997-2000 : Baccalauréat H1 (High School Diploma), Lycée d'Enseignement Artistique (Art High School), Abidjan
Exhibitions
Solo Exhibitions
2023
Forging Our Collective Destiny, African Art Beats, Washington, DC
Galerie Eureka, Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire
Rotonde des Arts Contemporains, Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire
2007
Galerie Art du temps, Abidjan
Collective Exhibitions
African Art Beats opening exhibit, Washington DC, USA
Galerie Eureka, Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire
Jardin Rouge (Montresso Art Foundation), 1-54 - Contemporary African Art Fair,
Marrakech, Morocco
Alliance Française, Pretoria, South Africa
Hommage to the Biennale of Dakar, Martigny, Switzerland
International Exhibition of the Arts of the Diversity, Nice, France
Maison d’Aissa Dione, 4th edition of PARTCOURS, Dakar, Senegal
Ivorian Cultural Week, Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso
Foundation Donwahi
Participation to the 7e Jeux de la Francophonie (7th Francophony Games), Nice,
France
Dak’Art In & OFF - the Biennale of Contemporary African Art, Dakar, Senegal
Rotonde des Arts Contemporains, Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire
BICICI, Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire
6e Jeux de la Francophonie( 6th Francophony Games), Beyrouth, Lebanon
1rst Games of the CEN-SAD, Museum of Niamey, Niger
World Bank, Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire
Residencies
2017 Fondation sur le Niger, Segou, Mali
2015 Cité internationale des Arts - representing Côte d’Ivoire, Paris, France
Awards
Collections
Collection of HM Mohamed VI, King of Morocco
CCH Pounder Collection
BICICI
BCAO (Banque centrale des Etats d’Afrique de l’Ouest)
Rotonde des Arts (Côte d’Ivoire)
Numerous private collections