PRESS RELEASE
“T R A C E ” TURAY MEDERIC (Ivory Coast – Street Art) September 2014 5th December 2014 - 1st February Gallery 2015Out of Africa Carrer Major 7
– Carrer Nou 08870 Sitges (Barcelona) www.galeria-out-of-africa.com – sorella@galeria-out-of-africa.com - +34 618 356 351
“T R A C E ” Beginning December 5th and showing until the 1st February 2015, Out of Africa gallery of Sitges (Barcelona) hosts an exhibition of recent work by Ivory Coast painter Turay Mederic.
Turay Mederic – Ivory Coast, 1979 – Painter and rap artist
Born in Ivory Coast in 1979, Mederic was only 4 years old when he began drawing in the manner of popular cartoons and imitating the work of great masters such as Picasso, Dalí or Basquiat. In 1984 Mederic´s father, who was in the forces, accepted a post in the USA and the family moved to Washington D.C. where Turay assimilated North American musical and artistic influences. In 1995, the family moved back to Ivory Coast where the young artist finished school to then begin his training in a Fine Arts School with an aim to find his roots and culture through art. In 1999 he was awarded "Best Young Artist of West Africa". Turay Mederic completed his diploma at Ivory Coast's National Institute of the Arts (INSAC) in the year 2000 and from that moment began to accumulate numerous awards and diplomas hosted by embassies and important companies in Abidjan.
Turay Mederic, rap artist
Turay Mederic – Rap artist
Turay Mederic first began to make a name for himself as a rap artist. In 2003, the year he published his first album “Ma route est longue" he was nominated Best Rap Artist, Ivory Coast at the MTV Awards. Mederic has performed concerts in the USA as well as in other countries such as France, Zimbabwe, Burkina Faso, Mali and Senegal where he has recently recorded the track "Hero" featuring Senegalese rap band DA BRAINS.
Turay Mederic, painter In 2005, viewers of Ivory Coast's tv programme « Passionaria », discovered that the rap artist also had a great talent as a painter. His first solo exhibition was held at the gallery that discovered him as a painter, Arts Pluriels in Abidjan. This show was followed by an exhibition in 2009 at the Hotel Sofitel Ivoire in Abidjan and in 2012 he exhibited his work at the Modern Arts Gallery in Atlanta and Washington D.C. Turay Mederic – Horse – 2014 – 100cm H x 150cm W – Oil and acrylic on canvas
Influenced by Basquiat and street art
Turay Mederic – Friends – 2014 – 100cm H x 150cm W – Oil and acrylic on canvas
Urban art is a worldwide phenomenon that took off in the sixties and includes different artistic practices: the use of markers or aerosols, posters, murals, adaptation of visual communication methods used in publicity, of signs... No formal unity, intentional, generational, ideological, territorial or otherwise characterizes urban art, its only requirement is that is should be expressed in the streets. While it is true to say that it all began with a group of artists that had broken with society such as Jacques Villeglé, Ernest Pignon-Ernest and Gérard Zlotykamien, it was its popular appeal that propelled urban art to the rank of a cultural movement.
Writing is an aesthetic movement that was born towards the end of the sixties on the East Coast of the USA within the context of great urban change and a simultaneous appearance of the American Civil Rights Movement. New York subway stations were progressively tagged - aerosol spray cans were used to write pseudonyms inspired by calligraphic art. In this fashion, writing became a means of expression for the young and disinherited that were close to the hip-hop movement. Among these “writers” there appeared pseudonyms such as Taki 183 or Seen that offered a different approach to writing, Turay Mederic – Toro – 2014 – 100cm H x 150cm W - one with a more aesthetic focus that had more in common with graphic artists and was closer to painters than to Oil and acrylic on canvas delinquents. It is this concept of writing which inspired the first Street Art artists such as Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring. Gradually emerging in the streets, this was self-taught figurative art, fueled by mass culture as a reaction to conceptual art and minimalism. Artists found inspirational motifs for their templates in rock and comic culture as well as in press photos. In the year 2000, with tagging no longer monopolizing the scene, there was space for a wider diversity of interventions: Banksy, with aerosol painting; JR, with photography and display methods and Space Invader, with mosaic. Street art is an art form in perpetual renovation, fueled by the evolution of society. In this manner it becomes a mechanism for commitment and mobilization. Turay Mederic – Forbidden fruit – 2014 – 100cm H x 100cm W – Oil and acrylic on canvas
Turay Mederic, a street artist that traces mankind In his work, an artist needs absolute frugality, to be limited, to start with basic elements. Turay Mederic's canvases give the entire space over to spontaneity, rubbing shoulders with the symbols of Afro-American culture. These simplified symbols and choice of materials are picked up during his travels, on streets and during chance encounters. His polysemous symbols tend towards a universal reading and his graffiti traces mankind, whether on the walls of a cave or on walls in a city. In his canvases, the subjects, the montage and objects from a variety of backgrounds are all part of a whole, like pieces of a game that can be joined or juxtaposed. His wish: that his creations become the vehicle for spectators to travel mentally to another place or time in history. Defying time, his writing immortalizes simple or complex things... By means of his contemporary urban art and social issues such as racism, war or homophobia, Turay Mederic traces mankind. Turay Mederic – Untitled – 2014 – 100cm H x 100cm W – Oil and acrylic on canvas
Exhibitions 2005-2006: Galería Arts Pluriels – Abidjan, Ivory Coast 2009: Group show – Hotel Sofitel Ivoire – Abidjan, Ivory Coast 2011: Auction in aid of the United Nations and the Red Cross 2012: Modern Arts Gallery – Atlanta & Washington D.C. 2013: Auction – Golf Club Hotel – Abidjan, Ivory Coast 2014: Group show – Jack Bell Gallery – London, U.K. 2014-2015: Out of Africa Gallery – Sitges (Barcelona), Spain For more information kindly contact: Sorella Acosta Out of Africa Gallery www.galeria-out-of-africa.com
sorella@galeria-out-of-africa.com Tel.: +34 618 356 351