Marius Mensah

"Afro-French plastic painter, my childhood was a key period in which my interest in Art was forged. Already as a favorite pastime, I drew with my fingers in the warm, fine and orange sand of my country of origin. I was indeed born in Porto Novo in Benin, former Kingdom of Dahomey. My mother of the Fon ethnic group, fashion designer brought me a sensitivity to the expression of beauty and very quickly I felt the need to express my emotions through drawing. Neither brush nor pencil, I let my fingers run in the sand and gave free rein to my creative instinct. Arrived in Metropolitan France in pre-adolescence, I was seized by the aesthetic difference. Still influenced by my mother's profession, it is first towards haute-couture that I turned, not to create but to wear clothes created by others. After a few years of modeling, the desire to play my fingers in the material brought me back to what I was doing as a child in the sand e, but this time on canvas. Self-taught, attached to no school or movement, my pictorial works are always very instinctive. I look for softness through curved lines, strength thanks to the powerful jets of the projected paint and subtlety through the contrast of warm, cold and luminous colors. I made murals (Plantation nightclub in Guingamp), interior decorations (companies and individuals) and participated in numerous exhibitions in Europe (Brittany, Paris, Bruges) but also in Australia (Sydney) and Brazil (Rio de Janeiro). Everything can inspire me: an exchange, the crowd, the colors, the scents… My approach being turned towards openness and emotion, my paintings do not need an explanation to be understood. It is up to everyone to engage in their own interpretation and to give free rein to their imagination ... "