Lot R

Ghislain Brown-Kossi is a Franco-Ivorian and Canadian multidisciplinary artist whose practice explores memory, identity, and cultural transmission through painting, sculpture, and installation. In Djela, he brings together African wax fabric, wood, plaster, acrylic, collage, spray paint, and sand to create a layered composition where pattern, texture, and material become part of an evolving visual language.

The title Djela refers to the transmission of knowledge and cultural memory. Brown-Kossi’s use of African wax fabric reflects his interest in materials that carry histories of exchange, identity, and belonging. Rather than using the fabric simply as ornament or cultural symbol, he integrates its patterns into the physical structure of the work, placing them in dialogue with the roughness of plaster, the grain of wood, and painted surfaces. Through layering, fragmentation, and abstraction, familiar materials are transformed into a contemporary visual language.

The work reflects Brown-Kossi’s ongoing movement between painting and sculpture, and his growing interest in structure, restraint, and material tension. His practice has received increasing institutional and collection recognition, including the acquisition of two works by the TD Bank Art Collection and his selection as a finalist for the 2025 Salt Spring National Art Prize. In 2026, he will undertake a three-month residency at Fonderie Darling in Montréal, where he will continue developing his research into materiality, cultural memory, and spatial forms.

Through layers of colour, texture, pattern, and material intervention, Djela considers how cultural memory can remain present while continuously evolving.