ISSOUF DIERO

Born in 1975 in Bobo-Dioulasso, the second city of Burkina Faso, I was brought up according to the traditions of my Dafin people. Very young, I became a "student" of a coranic school but I was, in fact, confronted with the reality of the street. This part of my history, this special link with urban life, and my family origins have been a real source of inspiration: the strength of my work. Vulcanizer by day, I created my first paintings and sculptures at night in the late 1990’s from tires, inner tubes and harvested objects from the streets. From 1999 to 2004, I made my first sculptures, paintings and large format works. Over the years, rubber, laterite, charcoal and bronze have become my materials of choice: creative media that resonate with where I come from, what I am, what I create.
Discovering CasziB's universe is often compared to embarking on a haunting adventure made of faces with piercings, seizing eyes that seem to follow you everywhere and dare you to truly listen to their life stories and imagine their fates in a world where the beauty fights the cruel, where the delicate triumphs over the violent.
The core message of his paintings is often referring to difficult and harsh subjects such as the place of mankind in nature, racism, homelessness highlighted by the the grace and the tenderness with which it is represented.
CasziB's art is that powerful because it unsettles, it disturbs, it questions but most importantly because through the discovery of its unique world it prompts a discovery of oneself.