With his paintings of Ivory Coast’s street kids, Aboudia has taken his teenage misfit mutiny to the very top, becoming one of the world’s bestselling artists along the way.

“When I was a teenager I wanted to paint but my father didn’t want me to,” Aboudia told AFP, remembering how artist was a synonym for “loser” at the time.

Today the painter, full name Abdoulaye Diarrassouba, has made a mockery of those jibes with his success.

Despite the challenges facing black African painters on the global market he ranks 1,311th out of the top 5,000 bestselling artists at auction worldwide, according to analyst firm Artprice.

And with 75 of his paintings bought in 2022 Aboudia was the contemporary artist who sold the most canvases that year, according to the Hiscox Top 100 rankings.

But before becoming a touchstone — Aboudia, who spends most of his time in Ivory Coast’s economic capital Abidjan — had to pave his own path in a society that pays scant regard for his chosen profession.

His life story as much as his subject matter invites comparisons with African American painter Jean-Michel Basquiat: both “found themselves alone in the street, but knew how to profit from it”, according to art critic Mimi Errol.

– ‘Children of the street’ –
It was Ivory Coast’s post-election crisis of 2010-11 and its 3,000 dead that brought Aboudia to the world’s attention, with the chaos of “The Battle of Abidjan” unspooling in brushstrokes across his canvases.

In line with his own past he paints young people — “the children of the street” — left to the war and to their own devices.

“This is not their place,” he insisted, urging “parents, the authorities, any person aware of the cause of childhood, to get them out of there”.

Aboudia took up his art studies at the conservatory in Abengourou, eastern Ivory Coast, before graduating to the Technical Arts Centre of Bingerville in the Abidjan suburbs.


https://www.vanguardngr.com/2025/03/ivorian-painter-aboudia-takes-teen-rebellion-to-top-of-the-art-world/