"My task as an artist is to be a mirror of society, representing the attitudes, the habits and the shortcomings of this society. If you like, I am kind of repository of culture and collective memory, of the collective conscience" (Yéanzi, 2021)

Saint-Étienne Yeanzi is a visual artist born in 1988 in Katiola, Côte d'Ivoire.

He lives and works between Abidjan and Paris. He is also a teacher and promoter of cultural projects.

A graduate of the Ecole Nationale des Beaux-arts d'Abidjan, from which he graduated top of his class in 2012, he was trained in painting and photography.

Yeanzi has established himself as one of the most important contemporary African artists of the last decade.

With a passion for the humanities, particularly philosophy, history and psycho-sociology, his work focuses on issues of identity and understanding the evolution of humanity.

Yeanzi also explores plastic and technical issues, using a wide variety of materials, mediums and techniques (fused plastic, fabric, plexiglass, board, paper, pvc, photography, traditional screen printing, collage, pictograms, calligraphy characters, ideograms, etc.). Yeanzi is also a street art enthusiast, a 'multitasking' creator who has worked as a commissioned portrait painter for nearly ten years.

Since 2013, he has been pursuing research and creative work that revolves around three collections (Persona 2013, Projections 2016, Colloquium 2018, Somnium 2023, Ecosystème 2024) that constitute the main thrusts of his fundamental theme "The Identitaire question".

A working process in which the artist questions personality, community and the place of historical memory in the process of building the development of societies and peoples. He melts plastic to create faces, silhouettes and realistic and surreal scenes.

Yeanzi uses different media and materials depending on the complexity of the different technical aspects of the subject. For him, "technique is only an instrument at the service of the theme, which must itself be the essence drawn from societal changes and the questions that arise from them".

Since 2009, his work has been regularly presented in numerous solo and group exhibitions:

- Abidjan jeune talent ! on dit quoi ? (2012), Abidjan

- AAA Abidjan art actuel (2014), Abidjan

- Art prize (2014), Abidjan

- 1/5A contemporary African art fair (2014, 2016, 2019, 2020, 2021), London

- Art Dubaï (2015), Dubai

- Dak’art off (2016), Dakar

- Pulse art fair Miami (2018, 2020), Miami

- Art one paper New York (2018), New York

- Art market San Francisco (2018), San Francisco

- Seattle art fair (2018), Seattle

- Indiscipline (2018), Marrakesh

- AKAA art fair (2018, 2023), Paris

- Illusion Identitaire (2021), Hambourg

- Once upon a time in West Africa (2022), Pietrasanta

- Venice Biennale - Pavilion Cote D’Ivoire (2022), Venice

- In-Transit (2022), LIS10 Gallery, Arezzo

- St-art (2023), Strasburg

- Reversed Safari (2023) St. Petersburg, Kazan

- L’Africa e Napoli (2024), Mastio Angioino, Napoli

- Africa Tunes (2024), Chiostro Sant’Agostino, Pietrasanta

- Investec Art Fai (2024), Capetown

- Art Central art fair (2024), Hong Kong

He made his debut at the Mohamed VI Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Rabat in 2017 as part of the exhibition Afrique en capital.

In 2022, his work was selected to represent the Ivory Coast pavilion at the 59th Venice International Biennale and also at the 14th Dak'art Pan-African Biennale.