Woman with fruit basket and two kids

Didier Ahadsi, born 1970 , near Lomé, Togo, "Woman with fruit basket and two kids"* from 2021 by Didier Ahadsi. An African woman, dressed in traditional fabrics, carries a basket of large green melons on her head and a small child on her back, while she is leading a boy by her left hand, who in turn is holding a soccer ball in his left arm. Both wear flip-flops on their feet and stand on a gray base. Material: sheet iron painted. (*The title is meant to be descriptive and not by the artist)

The artist comes from a large Ewe family and grew up with three half brothers and four half sisters in Vogan, near Lomé. His environment was shaped by agriculture, and his parents also worked in this field. The town of his birth, Vogan, is also shaped by the Vodoon cult, which - next to the Christian religion - is still very important today.
Ahadsi learned the trade of coachbuilder until he opened his own workshop;
Through the knowledge and skills of sheet metal and metalworking at a highly professional level, which he was able to develop and acquire autodidactically during his long training period, and his fondness for making tin figures since childhood, he began using durable and high-quality materials such as body panels to implement his figures, especially since the special tools required for this were now available to him for the first time.
Very soon the demand for his metal figures increased, sometimes figures ordered with intended ritual purposes. Ahadsi's art thus certainly keeps one of its roots in traditional African art (traditional art related to religious purpose, some of these works are therefore, after being transferred to the cult, authentic originals of classical African art according to European understanding).

Ausstellungen (Auswahl):

Togo direkt. Didier A. Ahadsi – Zeitgenössische Kunst aus Afrika 
Zeughaus Völkerkundesammlung, Lübeck, Deutschland 2007

La Vie d'Afrique aujourd'hui (Life in Africa Today), an exhibition by Didier Ahadsi, ELTTOB TEP, Tokyo, Japan 2011.  
                     
Afrikas Moderne im Spiegel der Generationen / Haus der Völker, Schwaz, Tirol, Österreich 2011 / 2012.

The Guardian world/gallery/2014/nov/17/-sp-african-artists-in-pictures

Wikipedia.org/wiki/Didier_Ahadsi

700 - 800,- Euro

Height: 47 cm
Weight: 2 kg