Jean-Servais Somian Ivory Coast , 1971

Jean-Servais Somian (b:1971, Ivory Coast) lives between Grand Bassam in Ivory Coast and Paris, France. His practice includes design and sculpture. 

Somian produces his sculptural work from a single material: the trunk of the Coco Nucifera. This is a formidable technical challenge as the wood of the coconut tree has contrasting characteristics of extreme hardness and fragility. A wood-worker by training, witnessing the gradual disappearance of the trees on the Ivorian coast- that are cut to give way to new construction- he took to learning the fast-disappearing traditional skill of carving it. 

Spanning up to 250cm, “Les Demoiselles” series of works display plans and curves that are carefully worked on to create an impression of movement, a nod to Picasso’s famous painting and the modernist explorations of space and movement in relation to traditional African sculpture.

The “Totems” and "Masks” series allude to how the Art Deco movement epitomised by masters such as Emile-Jacques Ruhlmann owes a debt to African art, and plays around creating contemporary animist, anthropomorphic urban objects that connect us to nature. 

Jean-Servais Somian trained first as a wood-worker in Ivory Coast where he acquired traditional techniques of wood carving and pursued his training in carpentry and design in Lausanne, Switzerland. 

His work was exhibited in Musee Dapper and Musee du quai Branly in Paris, in Biennale de Saint Etienne, France, and Biennale de Dakar, Senegal; Fondation ONA, Rabat et Casablanca, Morocco; Palazzo Litta, Milan; Collect London, UK; Design Miami, USA. His work is in noted private collections of contemporary African art, and in the permanent collections of: Musee des Arts Decoratifs, Paris, France and the Savanah and Denver Museum of Art, in the USA.