Since Jean-Michel Basquiat urged him to come to New York three decades ago, Ivory Coast artist Ouattara Watts has been making large-scale drawings and mixed-media paintings. On view at Galería Leyendecker on the Canary Islands, Spain, his latest solo outing is primarily composed of works on paper and includes the standout Blood Brother, where a leopard-like creature presides over three interstellar spheres. Evincing a modern nomadic sensibility, Watts' colorful, visually kinetic pieces draw from his far-flung travels, alluding to global politics, African iconography, religious symbols, and important historical dates, and frequently feature his signature polyglot scribbling. Though broad in reference, Watts' culturally disparate imagery works on an otherworldly, cosmological level as an ancient vision strewn with the residue of a fragmented, multinational existence.

-Cynthia M. Lugo