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Surprise for art world as Ivorian painter Aboudia tops 2022 bestseller list
The Guardian
|September 25, 2023
Not everyone will know his name, let alone his paintings, yet Aboudia has emerged as the bestselling artist of 2022, based on the number of artworks sold at auction, to the surprise of market experts.
Aboudia, aka Abdoulaye Diarrassouba, 40, whose art is inspired by street culture in his home town of Abidjan in Ivory Coast, heads the Hiscox Artist Top 100, a survey analysing key trends in contemporary art published today.
Aboudia's work is influenced by the graffiti of Abidjan and the traditional wood carvings of west Africa, and has been compared to the work of Jean-Michel Basquiat, who made his name with graffiti-like images. Since the Ivorian civil war in 2011, Aboudia's pictures have reflected the trauma of man's inhumanity to man with images of skulls and soldiers.
This story is from the September 25, 2023 edition of The Guardian.
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