ABOUT ME

I was born in Mauritius on August 7, 1968. Very early on, my parents gave me a taste for Art. They were real triggers of passion. I am a self-taught painter and I learned painting by observing the work of my elders. In 1986 I took up oil painting and over time I became familiar with acrylic paint and watercolour, pastel, ink, charcoal and engraving on copper and zinc plates . I studied graphic art and this school helped me a lot with composition and later with the creation of the style that I called “Zafer”.

 

It was in 2003 that I started working on a very colourful style of painting, accompanied by geometric shapes. The use of graphics in the Zafer style stems in part from a simplification of the painter Vincent Van Gogh's touches. The spirals and circular shapes that we find in his painting “Starry Night” and the almost geometric shapes of the painting “Dandelion Meadow” caught my attention and I wondered what a painting would look like in which these touches of paint were simplified. This is how I started making paintings with circles, spirals, squares, triangles, lines and dotted lines. There is definitely also an influence from Australian First Nations paintings which I have always admired. The practice of the Zafer style is for me a never-ending adventure, because a style of painting is called upon to constantly evolve for the happiness of the one who creates and those who observe it.

 

I organised my first solo art exhibition in 1996 at the Max Boullé gallery in Rose-Hill, Mauritius. Encouraged by reviews, I offered solo art exhibitions to the Mauritian public in 1998, 2000, 2002, 2006, 2014 and 2022 where I organised an exhibition of Zafer paintings at the Caudan Arts Center.

 

I tried my hand at writing in 2018 and I published my first book of short stories entitled “Petites histoires qui font sourire, peut-être rire ou qui pourraient vachement plomber l’ambiance”, a book with a deliberately kilometric title. In 2020, I published my first novel; John Berik, Cabri c’est fini!

 

I have always been very curious about the things around me and I want to be able to create in my paintings an imaginary world reflecting the joy of living and happiness. It is a utopian world compared to the one that surrounds us today. I sincerely think that our world needs light and bright colours to combat the ambient darkness.