Exiled artist in Graz

“I will not allow my dream of art to be taken away”

Famakan Magassa from Mali is in Graz for a year as an "artist in exile"

(Bild: Christoph Hartner)

In his home country of Mali, Famakan Magassa was unable to fulfill his dream of being an artist - the authoritarian Muslim leadership had no understanding for his art. He is now living in Graz for a year as an "artist in exile" and wants to launch his career here.

"An artist belongs to the whole world," says Famakan Magassa poetically. The young artist from Mali has been living in Graz as an "artist in exile" for several weeks. "My home country has been in a civil war for 10 years. It's no place for art," he says. There is also no artistic infrastructure: "There are no galleries in Mali and only one museum, which only shows popular art. There is no place for contemporary art anywhere in the country," he explains.

Not easy conditions for Magassa, who has known since childhood that he wanted to be an artist: "I was always called up to the blackboard in biology lessons at elementary school because I could draw the animals and plants so beautifully," he says. "Being an artist was my dream and I won't let anything destroy it," he says confidently.

One of Famakan Magassa's paintings

(Bild: Famakan Magassa)

In order to fulfill this dream, it was clear to him that he would have to leave his home country, as the subjects and people he depicts in his paintings are seen as immoral by the authoritarian Muslim rulers in Mali: "It wasn't easy to leave, but it was necessary," he says, offering another poetic image for his situation: "Life gives you the rice, but you have to make the sauce yourself." In good German, you could say: Magassa is aware that he is the architect of his own fortune.

He is now working on his expressive paintings in Graz, where he has found a home for a year through his Viennese gallery (AG18): "I can only work in a large format, because for me everything starts with the movement of the brush in broad strokes," he says. In his paintings, he deals with the harrowing, often absurd realities of life in his home country. "It's an attempt to process everything I've seen and experienced," he says.

Famakan Magassa at work

(Bild: Famakan Magassa)

But why are the majority of his people blue? "On the one hand, I want to avoid people being able to immediately assign them to a country or skin color," he says. "And on the other hand, blue is a color of freedom for me. The sky and the water are blue - and humans are made up of 70 percent water."

It is precisely this freedom that he also enjoys in Graz, where he is looked after by Kulturvermittlung Steiermark: "I can work in peace all day and develop myself further," he says. From here, he is pursuing his next career goal: "I want to apply to the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna."