Gombo Curated by Loïc Le Gall

For his first solo exhibition in France, Marcus Jahmal (b. 1990, USA) presents a series of mainly figurative drawings and paintings created since 2016. A self-taught artist who grew up in a mixed-race family on a Puerto Rican block, Jahmal thrived in a multi-ethnic and working-class environment. He has embraced both the codes of street culture - rubbing shoulders with graffiti artists, and himself painting New York City facades - and Latino and Creole traditions, as well as Afro-American music from jazz to contemporary hip-hop.

Structured around three major themes, the exhibition reflects his ceaseless crossovers and unconventional sensitivity. His legendary bestiary blends voodoo scenes with mythological hybrids of the Incas and Egyptians; Venus, a policeman and patterns from wrought iron gates constitute a contextualisation of life in the New York borough of Brooklyn, more specifically its black population, while a fantasised American landscape is depicted with large coloured abstractions.

The title of the exhibition is a tribute to the Creole cuisine of New Orleans, a cosmopolitan city where Jahmal has roots. Gumbo, a “surf and turf” dish epitomising the fusion of European, African and Choctaw cultures, is a metaphor of the artist’s own mixed and unconventional background. For his exhibition at the Passerelle Centre for Contemporary Art, Marcus Jahmal presents a new body of works produced on site and inspired by his experience of the Finistère region.