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The second edition was dedicated to the emerging Ivorian artistic scene

Assoukrou Aké, Perle noire. Engraved panel and acrylic. Courtesy of the artist & Ellipse Prize.

Assoukrou Aké is the winner of the second edition of the Ellipse Prize, an initiative of the Fonds from the Ellipse art projects endowment, which each year honours the artistic creation of a countries of sub-Saharan Africa or Asia while supporting awareness for the environment.

The second edition of the Ellipse Prize is dedicated to emerging African artists (from 18 to 40 years old) residing in Ivory Coast, not represented by a gallery and whose practice belongs to the visual arts.

The winning artist Assoukrou Aké will benefit from an exhibition during AKAA, ALSO KNOWN AS AFRICA, from October 20 to 23, 2022 as well as support media and professional.

Born in 1995 in Bonoua, Ivory Coast, Assoukrou Aké is a multidisciplinary artist. His training in art history leads him to develop research projects in which he embodies the role of a medical researcher leading so-called “healing” stories in response to violence and its capacity for mutation transcribed through references made from image fragments.

To build his stories, Assoukrou Aké thinks of the impossibility of putting in image the unnamable. The artist builds and deconstructs these fragments of images that he riddles with holes, dislocates, hollows out voids… He disarticulates movement, breaks the context of these images and empty them of their senses. This is what he calls “the art of translation”. This translator art, between fantasies and memories, is part of the past, the present and its news. It refers to African tales, profane rites and sacred rites, to painting academic, press photography and a revisited cosmogony. The work of Assoukrou Aké received in 2017 the Grand Prix International Jeune Talent Arbustes during the Salon d’Automne de Paris as well as in 2022 the Public Prize on the occasion of the Prix ICART Artistik Rezo. Assoukrou Aké was also nominated for the JUVENARS-IESA Awards and the Prix Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne in 2021.

Assoukrou Aké was chosen among the 5 finalists by an independent jury made up of contemporary art professionals, including specialists from the Ivorian art scene. As a reminder, 67 applications had been received following the call for applications for this 2nd edition.

2022 Finalists

• Assoukrou Aké @assoukrou_ake

• Aly Mazeh @alymazeh

• Keren Lasme @angnm__

• Cynthia Colney @cynthiacolney

• Theophany Adoh @le_traxeur

For more information, please visit the Ellipse Prize.

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