PAOLO KIPAO

Paolo Kipao paints (mostly) non-figurative compositions deploying domestic oils on canvas, often creating art works which are, by Seychelles standards, large. 

The final works are extraordinary compressions of movement, colour and energy, with the canvases invariably worked on horizontally with brushes large and small, rollers, spatulas, sticks and hands, before being turned upright for final adjustments, at which point the artist adopts the perspective of a viewer. 

Kipao has been exhibiting in Seychelles for several years, and successfully so within the context of a market which continues to favour more traditional figurative painting. People connect with these dynamic compositions, which communicate feeling and process through frenetic gymnasia of paint. They – the gallery-visiting public -  ‘get it’, whatever ‘it’ might be – and almost certainly everyone ‘gets’ a slightly different ‘it’, which is usual when looking at abstract art devoid of the anchoring that recognisable forms or words provide and which unites collective perceptions and interpretations. 

When confronted by abstract art it’s every man and woman for themselves. We might throw the occasional conversational life jacket at each other as we stand in front of these imposing objects, but essentially it’s a matter of ‘us’ and ‘it’. We have to make personal sense of what we see within the context of an aesthetic democracy of reading.
Kipao is not a ‘market-driven’ artist. He is working things out principally for himself.