Ezekiel MESSOU

Ezekiel Messou (Cotonou, Benin) repairs sewing machines in a town very close to Cotonou. To draw up an inventory of the parts at his disposal, but also in order to remember how to disassemble and reassemble all the different models of machines, he draws the inventory on the walls of his workshop first, and then copies it in notebooks. Little by little, Ezekiel seems to join the drawing game, which leaves its purely utilitarian purpose and winds up bearing witness to his deep passion for these machines, whose contours he proceeds to draw generously. The drawings in the collection of Art et marges date from after 2013, the year he was discovered by the Outsider Art Collection. The interest shown in his drawings by three Europeans who came to his small workshop surprised Ezekiel Messou to no end. He went back to his creative work, which he had abandoned, full of enthusiasm, on plain paper and in ever freer forms too.