Isabelle Bulczynski Dossa is a French-Beninese artist, who has lived in Burkina Faso since 2012. She has studied arts and art therapy in France.

The oeuvres have been made on sheet metal, and combine paint, oxidized metal and fabrics.

“My choice to work with metal was born out of my fascination with the corrosion reactions of iron. I use rust removers and lacquers to stop the process or alternatively to speed it up. I then complete the traces of oxidization by adding necessary paint: ochre, umber and black, to add to the beauty of rust. To add to this, I’ve used the African fabrics to give colour.”

“The cuts, bumps and holes on the rusty sheet metal show the passing of time, and reflect timeless shapes and figures. Painting onto the rusty metal sheet means revealing a picture and awakening the memory of a creature, that would return from the past and to which I give the chance to come back to life. Shapes come alive. Shapes, that could themselves rise up from those warm memories, those, that still live in us and that would need a little stirring up, so their speech wouldn’t end short.”