FRANCK EZAN

Born in 1994 in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, Ezan lives and works in Cocody Abatta. After five years at the National School of Fine Arts in Abidjan, he graduated with a Master 2 in painting in 2019. In 2020, he was a finalist for the Kuenyehia Trust For Contemporary Art. He participates in several group exhibitions in Abidjan, notably at the Rotonde des Arts in 2016, at the Art Time Gallery in 2019, at the Houkami Guyzagn Gallery in 2020, in 2021 at the Adama Toungara Museum of Contemporary Cultures and at the Louis Simone Guirandou Gallery. In 2022 Ezan is present internationally in group exhibitions in Maryland in the United States at the Tinny White Wall Gallery, in Paris at the 193Gallery, at the ARCO BOA fair in Lisbon and at AKAA in Paris. In 2023, he returns to residency at La Fourchette de Rose in Grand Bassam.

Franck Ezan is an artist deeply committed to exploring the complexity of human identity. At the heart of his thinking is the absolute differentiation of our fingerprints, which serves as a starting point for questioning the notion of identity.

Growing up alongside his twin brother, he was influenced from a young age by the duality of this unique relationship. The constant search for his own singularity within this twinning has led him to question what makes each individual a unique being. It is in his personal history, marked by a childhood that was both tormented and happy, that Franck draws the inspiration necessary for his artistic work.

His relationship with others, his deep torments and above all his complex relationship with his twin brother, his true double in appearance, have shaped the artistic choices which have traced his journey. For him, identity is an elusive concept, oscillating between the social sphere and the intimate.

The paradox of identity lies in its character which is both singular and collective, influenced by elements such as beliefs, gender, citizenship, color, social class or culture. Franck Ezan thus positions himself as a witness to this contemporary quest for identity markers. His deeply thoughtful artistic work explores not only the artistic aspects of this question, but also the scientific dimensions related to identity.

Thus, through his research on the series "La Croisée des Chemins", Franck Ezan becomes an explorer of this complex intersection between similarity and difference, the intimate and the social, the perception of oneself and the gaze of others, continuity and change. His art invites us to question what really defines our identity within contemporary society in perpetual search for meaning.