"Ngoye's works impress with their vibrant, shimmering abstractions applied in multiple layers of oil paint and mixed media. I am inspired by how the forms lead the viewer's eye restlessly across the rich surface of the painting, curiously searching for clues. Ngoye's works are unique in their forms, rich in associations and at the same time completely abstract."
Tobias Sirtl, Specialist, 20th Century & Contemporary Art, Phillips, 2023.
Jean N’Goran Kouame creatively knwon as Ngoye (born 1980 in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire) is a highly sought-after contemporary artist. In his work, he questions human dynamics and inner states. True psychosocial phenomena are different from outward appearances, emotions are isolated from the outside world, true identity is hidden. This is a theme that underlies all of Ngoye's work and is reflected in the symbol of the mask, which is metaphorically linked to the tradition of his homeland.
In a neo-expressionist style, Ngoye translates these themes into form and colour on canvas. His work evolved towards greater abstraction and deconstruction of the image. The original masks are gradually blurred with each other and with the background of the painting, and from one work to the next they seem to become a single entity. At first they were presented in a geometric way, with a deformation, rearrangement and distortion of the forms already evident, which in later works was reinforced by the now expressive flow of the brush. The geometry of the early works gradually disintegrated, and his new series of works show an even greater loss of the true identity of society in the face of greater abstraction. A form of expression also found in the work of abstract expressionist Cy Twombly. Twombly's paintings feature chaotic tangles of paint that, unlike Ngoye's, do not cover the entire surface of the canvas, but merely accentuate it. Ngoye takes this technique to the extreme, covering large formats.
His works embody oppressive pain and reveal a distrust of society. The artist asks himself to what extent he is influenced by situations, people and circumstances.
"Am I who I think I am?" Ngoye, 2023.
The socially critical content of the paintings is taken to a new level. In his earlier paintings, the artist showed in a figurative way that the true inner state of people is hidden under a mask, with the very motif of the mask. Now he is putting a mask on his works himself, blurring their features beyond recognition.
Ngoye graduated from the École Nationale des Beaux-Arts in 2006. His works are already in prestigious private and public collections around the world, including the prestigious Imago Mundi - Luciano Benetton Collection in Italy and the Larissa and Harald Falckenberg Art Collection in Hamburg, Germany. He also won the 47th Art Prize of the Société de Distribution d'eau en Côte d'Ivoire (SODECI).
In 2024, he was selected for the exhibition 'Persona', curated by the renowned art collector Harald Falckenberg, and for the exhibition 'Mouvement' in collaboration with the French Consulate General and the Institut français (Hamburg).