About

Alexandre Desane — Paris

Painter. Oil pastel
and oil stick on paper.

At six years old, I told my mother I wasn't Black — I was orange. Not because I was ashamed. Because I couldn't see myself in the word they were using against me.

That question never left. As a painter, I answered it with green.

Green because Black people are never actually black — they carry every shade of brown, copper, and ochre that the word flattens. Green because Piccolo, the wisest figure in Dragon Ball Z, is green — an outsider who becomes a master, whose severed arm grows back. Green because when the Belgian king cut off the hands of Congolese people as a demonstration of colonial power, that act demands an answer in paint. Green because it is the one colour historically forbidden in French theatre — toxic, cursed, dangerous. The colour they told you not to touch.

My figures have no faces. Posture carries more truth than features. I also paint still lifes — objects hold the same silence as bodies. Presence without explanation.

I work with oil pastel and oil stick on paper. Small formats. Direct colour. The hand is visible in every stroke. Major works, exhibitions, and institutional documentation live on adesane.com.