On paintings — why I paint alongside the steel

I am known for the barrels. For the steel. For the sculptural furniture that occupies the collections of major museums.

But I paint.

I have always painted. And the painting is not separate from the rest of the work — it is the other side of the same conversation.

What the canvas allows

Steel is slow. A cabinet from the Bolibana series takes weeks. Each decision is permanent. You cannot paint over a weld.

Canvas is different. It allows speed, accident, revision. It allows me to think out loud — to follow an intuition without committing to it before I understand it.

Many of the forms that eventually appear in my sculpture begin as marks on canvas. A gesture made quickly, in the morning, before the studio opens and the noise begins.

The Urban Rituals series

The large paintings I have been making in recent years — the Urban Rituals series — come from the city. From the density of Ouagadougou, its colors and contradictions, its vitality and its difficulty.

These are not illustrations. They are responses. A way of processing what the city does to a body that moves through it every day.

Why both

A collector once asked me why I do both — the furniture and the paintings. Why not specialize?

I told him: because I am not trying to make a career. I am trying to understand something. And understanding requires moving between different modes of attention.

The steel teaches me patience. The canvas teaches me speed. Together, they teach me what I am actually trying to say.