THE BREATH OF SPIRITS

⁠Moussa Sawadogo, better known as the artist Mouss Black is an artist from Burkina Faso, living and working in Ouagadougou. As a teenager he was introduced to art at the Fondation Olorun. Over the years, he has built up a solid reputation for his unique sculptural works, in which he skillfully blends wood and iron, sometimes embellished with canvas and recycled objects.

More recently, he has extended his artistic exploration to the field of drawing, where his focus on medium’s diversity is also striking. In his pictorial artworks, Mouss Black opts for the use of coffee, inspired both by its singular hue and the memories it evokes,
recalling moments shared in his native Burkina. Instead of a paintbrush, he uses a teaspoon to create his characters, which are themselves made of coffee. He then uses pens of different colors to accentuate movements and create visual harmony.

For Mouss Black, painting and sculpture are not separate disciplines, but rather complementary approaches that enable him to expressively explore the issues raised by the contemporary world that eludes him and that he seeks to understand. His works reflect this artistic and intellectual quest, a constant search for meaning in an ever-changing world.

In his artistic work, Mouss Black finds inspiration in everything that surrounds him: the cacophony of urban noises, the burning garbage, the engine smoke mingling with the red dust, and the atmospheres of Ouagadougou, the city where he lives.

As he observes elements such as tree trunks gnawed by termites, rusty metal sheets, cracked, weathered walls, characters begin to takeshape in his mind. Sometimes more distinct, these figures oscillate between the human and the animal, condemned to remain trapped in the folds of time, unable to breathe.⁠