The Paris-based self-taught artist, who started off painting graffiti in the streets and today counts Richard Mille and Pierre-Alexis Dumas as his friends, now sets his sights on Southeast Asia.
The post Urban Artist Kongo on His Love Affair with Asia appeared first on LUXUO.

Kongo in Karl Largerfeld’s studio. Photo by Laurent Segretier
Kongo aka Cyril Phan has never been particular about the surface he leaves his mark on, whether wall, canvas, shop window, trunk, dress, bag, scarf, jewellery, champagne bottle, humidor, car or even airplane, multiplying collaborations with French brands like Chanel, Hermès, Richard Mille, Daum and La Cornue to showcase traditional European savoir-faire. The 51-year-old French-Vietnamese artist likes the idea of being able to appropriate an everyday object and transform it into a work of art, something that makes life more beautiful. An early proponent of the Parisian graffiti art scene who earned a reputation for his pictorial alphabets reconciling painting and writing, he has soared to new heights, reinterpreting varied universes in a language filled with colours, shapes and letters. Now his focus has shifted to his Asian heritage, as he plans to set up an atelier-showroom in Singapore and a boutique-gallery in Hanoi to highlight age-old Southeast Asian crafts that have been given his joyful, energetic and optimistic touch. We sit down with him to find out about his life during the Covid-19 crisis, giving back to society and his plan...