November 4, 2021
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Booth: Karma, New York and Los Angeles
What It Costs: $160,000
Why It’s Special: Ouattara Watts was born in the Ivorian capital, Abidjan, in 1957, and in the 1980s, went to Paris to study painting, where he met none other than Jean-Michel Basquiat. Legend has it that Basquiat was an immediate fan of Watts’ work and single-handedly convinced him to move to New York City, where he still lives and works today. Since then, Watts has gained fame for large-scale canvases painted in a singular, mystical visual language. The Visionaries is a representative work, drawing the eye in with arrows pointing in conflicting directions, foreboding faces, and geometric shapes reminiscent of Hilma af Klint dancing in the background.