An African artist’s messages through the American jeans

BY DEDE YI-FEE

He was born Yves Magloire Ludovic Midahuen. The much-traveled 40-year-old artist born in Porto-Novo, Benin’s capital, later became known as Midy. He lives in Benin but his paintings have been exhibited and thrilled art connoisseurs throughout the world except the United States. But he plans to give America a taste of his paintings by exhibiting his works in selective cities to be announced later. That explains why we have picked these paintings from his large collection about one of the most popular symbols of the American way of life: Jeans.

In the mind of the artist whose creativity knows no boundaries in time or space, the jeans in these paintings are the product of the cries, the sweat and blood of the African slave toiling in the cotton fields of the American south. And, as you look deeper into Midy’s canvases, you hear the melancholic blues of the overworked, abused slave singing away his suffering. But the slave always stands tall.

Midy’s painting is a hymn to self-confidence, open-mindedness and faith in the future; a hymn that opens itself to you once you discover its keys. When you stand in front of a painting by Midy, listen carefully to your look, and you will hear him telling you that the people you are seeing are always on the go. A more or less painful path where one calls oneself into question on a permanent basis. You will also hear that the waters that the people are crossing here, and the steps they are climbing there, symbolize the human condition.

Once your look gets the message, life’s pathway, with its pains and its joys, takes shape in his paintings. Isn’t man the being that cannot live happily unless he has suffered? Isn’t it true that success is at the end of pain?

The open doors that you will see on Midy’s canvases are a call to Hope.

Midy is you, is me, is Man, in short.

Yves Magloire Ludovic Midahuen

Tel. (+229) 90-93-61-70; 97-26-58-02; 21-32-34-31.

Email: mid_arts@yahoo.fr