AN INTERNAL LANDSCAPE

This work is inspired by My life in the bush of ghosts by Amos Tutuola, a novel that affected me with its surreal, dreamlike narrative. Tutuola’s world, where magic and brutality intertwine through the eyes of a lost child, became the catalyst for this artistic exploration. Through these images, I try to translate the emotions of the child protagonist, and my own as a reader, giving body to wonder, fear, and transformation.

At the beginning of this project, I was working in Benin. Tutuola’s story is rooted in West Africa, and its mysticism resonated deeply, blurring the lines between reality and the unseen. The novel’s vivid atmosphere compelled me to visualize it in a narrative of pictures, an internal, invented landscape where time dissolves, memory shifts, and the spirits whisper through colours and forms. Each piece in this collection is a bridge between Amos Tutuola’s story, personal experience, and art history. Influences range from traditional artworks to contemporary paintings from artists around the world. Music, too, played a role; Brian Eno and David Byrne, inspired by the same book, infused their album with “visions of a psychedelic Africa" and a multitude of voices, which further inspired this work.

The work is a personal meditation on the spiritual, transforming lived experience into an otherworldly passage challenging my own scientific mind.