MOUSS

MOUSS (Moustapha Maïga) was born in 1975 into a lineage of traditional textile dyers in Ouahigouya, Burkina Faso. His innate sense and understanding of colour, matter, and the ‘alchemy’ of the creative process, is deeply rooted in this ancestral craft. 

Entirely self-taught and fuelled by a hunger for continuous experimentation, Mouss is constantly seeking to expand the boundaries of his art. From his early days of making a living selling his hand-made postcards, his drawing and wax-resist dyeing skills branched out into sign painting and screen-printing, making posters, T-shirts, and bill-boards for local businesses and advertising campaigns. 

Currently Mouss works with a variety of different media, often inventing new techniques and tools. Painting with his fingers, sometimes with both his left and right hand, sometimes holding several paint brushes simultaneously, he works on cotton (preferably hand-woven from Burkina Faso) on linen and on wood and uses natural pigments and plant preparations - many of which he has harvested and prepared himself. He prepares all of the colours for his dye-baths and paint palette and uses linseed oil and occasionally acrylic.

Mouss’s works are an expression of his observations and deep-felt sense of life and all that surrounds him - both the visible and the invisible. He speaks of ‘taming matter’, of ‘magma’ and of ‘capturing light’. He paints feelings. He paints sounds. It could be said that he possesses six or maybe seven senses… His works are visceral, multi-sensory, extra-sensory.

Since moving to France in 2002, Mouss has exhibited internationally; in Burkina Faso, France, Belgium, Switzerland, Great Britain, and in Spain. He has received awards for his work at numerous art fairs, both in France and abroad, and was recently shortlisted by The Royal Academy of Arts, London, for the Summer Exhibition 2019. His extremely varied and ever evolving body of work is composed entirely of unique pieces.