Mederic Turay Ivorian, b. 1979
On the canvas, he captures scenes of life that represent frozen moments and encapsulate the dynamism of the action of living nature that he interprets. His textured works, which combine painting, collage and drips, stimulate all the spectator's senses. They arouse a series of emotions and invite contemplation but also and above all, reflection.
Visionary, thoughtful as much as intuitive, Mederic Turay uses his talents to participate in raising awareness by telling the most beautiful as well as the hardest stories. This multidisciplinary storyteller lives his art as a privilege and uses a plurality of techniques to create entities, sometimes figurative, sometimes abstract, which become the protagonists of his graphic stories.
His style and the themes he deals with reflect his cosmopolitan life journey and his West African origins. Descendent of a royal family of the Akan people in present-day Côte d'Ivoire, Mederic only got to know his country of origin as a teenager when he returned from the United States where he grew up. His cultural mix which explains his constant quest for balance in duality, influences the way he builds his works.
The balance of life forces, symbolized by two complementary forms: the cross and the spiral, in a way his yin and his yang. The spiral, round and infinite, refers to the movement of the cosmos, the dynamism, the creative fertility. Conversely, the cross, rigid in straightness, symbolizes anchoring, stability and material concretization. It is most often in the eyes of his characters that he inserts these cosmogonic symbols. For him, balance in duality leads to happiness.
Visionary, thoughtful as much as intuitive, Mederic Turay uses his talents to participate in raising awareness by telling the most beautiful as well as the hardest stories. This multidisciplinary storyteller lives his art as a privilege and uses a plurality of techniques to create entities, sometimes figurative, sometimes abstract, which become the protagonists of his graphic stories.
His style and the themes he deals with reflect his cosmopolitan life journey and his West African origins. Descendent of a royal family of the Akan people in present-day Côte d'Ivoire, Mederic only got to know his country of origin as a teenager when he returned from the United States where he grew up.
His cultural mix which explains his constant quest for balance in duality, influences the way he builds his works. Trained in Fine Arts, he easily got rid of stylistic constraints by drawing from the material and the process which
allow him to best express his point. This is how he combines his talent for music and writing with his passion for painting and sculpture, multiplying albums and first artistic prizes.
The maturity and humility he acquired through travel and meetings with other recognized artists of his generation and the previous one allowed him to focus on the visual arts and to assert his unique style.
