A closer look at Kouka Ntadi's creative process

Can you tell us a little about yourself and your artistic practice?

My name is Kouka Ntadi, and I'm a visual artist. My preferred medium is painting, which I do both in public spaces, directly on walls, and in the studio on various supports.

What is your background and how did you start creating?
M
y first artistic experience was in 1994, when I discovered Hip Hop culture. I began to practice rap and graffiti unconditionally, because the values defended by this movement at the time corresponded totally to what I was looking for. In other words, a framework that allowed me to express my singularity in complete freedom, within a group driven by shared values of respect and transmission.

After training as an advertising decorator, I entered the Ecole des Beaux Arts. It wasn't until 2008, when I returned to Sub-Saharan Africa, that my passion for graffiti came up against a lack of material and financial resources. I finally adapted my practice to this new context by making my own tools, reducing my colors to the simple use of black and white and working on recycled supports. In the end, this new context enabled me to direct my painting towards the values I have always defended: sobriety, respect for nature and the transmission of a more humanist narrative.

In your day-to-day work as an artist, what inspires you? What triggers the creation of a work?

Even if current events are often the starting point for my work, I always try to create works that retain a timeless dimension and can be read by everyone. I also draw a lot of inspiration from popular myths and all kinds of images that span centuries and cultures.

Can you explain how you go about creating your work? What are the different stages of creation?

The first stage of my work consists in finding an image or a word that will resonate with the final context of the work. Then, I spend a lot of time preparing my support when it's a work in the studio, or scouting out the location when it's an outside wall. Finally, the production phase must be carried out quickly and instantaneously, with an economy of gesture and material, so as to preserve maximum spontaneity in the final result. The aim is to get as far away as possible from a clean, sanitized image, in order to highlight the gesture and energy of the moment.

Follow Kouka's news on Instagram andfind here the book "The Book of Bantu" available on Fluctuart's online shop.