“I believe we must always keep one foot in the past. I am not talking about twenty years ago, but about returning to the roots. How could I, as an artist, ignore the fact that so much of what we know today began in Africa?”, says Chidy Wayne almost as a statement.
We are in the frame of the first solo exhibition by the Spanish-Guinean artist at Francis Gallery in Los Angeles. The space run by Rosa Park brings together the “Ego” and “Pugna” series, two bodies of work he understands as essential pillars of his practice. Both function as an intimate portrait of his thinking. Wayne sees himself as a spiritual fighter, someone who, like so many others, advances in search of answers to questions that continue to resonate: who we are, where we are heading, what purpose guides us.
Far from rejecting the word “primitive,” Wayne restores it to its origin and speaks it with pride. “The primitive is not a lack but a form of sophistication. It represents the ability to say much with very little, to find depth in simplicity.” For him, who carries the stories of Africa within his body, it is an affirmation of belonging. “I always look for that middle ground where the raw ideas of my African heritage can meet the rational thinking of Europe,” he states.
His work moves beyond time, refusing to accept boundaries between what was and what will be. It looks backwards and forwards in the same gesture, as if past and future were two ends of a single line he is trying to close. Chidy aspires to a universal language that transcends gender, culture, or geography. His hands enter into dialogue with the anonymous cave painters of prehistory and, at the same time, with the beings who do not yet exist.
In Ancestral Futures, Wayne invites us to inhabit the place where memory and intuition meet, where identity is inheritance, but also possibility.
Ancestral Futures, Chidy Wayne
04 October — 26 November 2025
Francis Gallery
8323 MELROSE AVENUE, WEST HOLLYWOOD, CA 90069
