Caramo Fanta Camara dotingly known as Ifreecan or Free is a natural
born artists born to Gambian parents in the city of Lleida, Spain. He
won his first drawing competition (Premi de Belles Arts de Lleida) when
he was in grade two followed by another at grade four and another in a
summer camp drawing competition at the age of eight.
Growing up in Spain, football was apart of
him and has served as captain of his school team and FC
Gardeny, a local club in Lleida he played for and winning four
championships titles. At the age of eleven he did his first graffiti under the pen
name 'Mano'. Growing up in Spain, Ifreecan had an obsession for
Arts,paintings, graffiti, sculpture, Hip hop, photography and art works
by great artists like Picasso, Salvador Dalis, Michelangelo and the
likes. By the time he was thirteen he became addicted to art galleries,
museums and graffiti works which automatically became his source of
inspiration to start doing his work in his own way. During summer he
would spend most of his time on the river side of the city where he was
born, where giants cement walls were the concreate canvas graffiti artist all
over the city use to go and do their 'graffs' on.
In 2000 after the untimely demise of his father, his family sent him and
his brother to the Gambia “against their will” to learn the norms and
values of a Mandinka setting. And during their stay he learned how to
speak Mandinka, Wolof and English for a decade. According to Ifreecan,
'during the hash years with sickness he spent in The Gambia tired of
being pointed out because of his first time in Africa and his Spanish
accent; music became his chill pill and he improved his English
listening to Hip hop records and writing poetry as a hobby. “To be
honest! Music saved my life when I was depressed especially when my paps
passed away” said Caramo himself.
Between the year 2007 and 2008 while in the Gambia, he did some work at Katchikally Crocodile Pool
Gallery, where he learned valuable lessons from Eddie Jobe and Sam to
push his paintings and to create the essence in his painting the urban
and africanised side of him. Ifreecan also played a vital role in the
Gambian Hip hop community, he did T-shirt printings, murals, graphic
designs, graffiti works, album covers, posters, photo shootings for rap groups
in Gambia like La Cosa Nostra, DTE, Street Dreams, Super Biggy, Sir
X,Hot Bda sufi and many more with no strings attached. His works are
visible in Senegal, Spain Including an underground upcoming clothing
companies in Europe like SILENCIO in Holland, R.U.C (Represent Ur
Country) UK. This year just for the love of Hip hop he also contributed
to a clothing company called Kunta Kinteh fabrics of freedom.
From 2006 to 2009, Ifreecan sold twenty painting to a gallerist in
South Africa, others inSenegal to the late art dealer Morr Seck and
other series of ten paintings to Malik Camara, a professor at the
university of Chicago and a professional dancer at the Muntu Dance
Group. In a world of technological advancement, he also sells
paintings,exposes his Photography work,and sculptures via facebook and
his web page and i have sold more than thirty paintings including the
Gambian market as well.
Just like many artists, prior to his
return to Spain to participate in art expositions and seminaris. he has
also gone through some level of exploitation in The Gambian galleries
during his plight to explore new ways of artistic expressions to
establish his own gallery - IFREECAN and his artistic ideology in life
by adding African style, a graffiti to his Spanish urban style,
philosophy and self knowledge to his autodidact creative works and
thinking.
His work is no national geographic style of thing..
with perfect beautiful landscapes, and all that, what Mr. Caramo Fanta
Camara does is more artistic and conceptual in all angles; working by
series and each series have its own concept. In an exposition in 2010,
his works were celebrated and sponsored by the Museum of Palma de
Mallorca (Museum es Baluard) and was featured on the news papers and art
magazines in Spain.
As a passionate artist he has participated
in many art expositions and worked with Antoni Socias, an
artist/photographer who came all the way from Spain to see his works and
later did an exposition with him titled “Mi otro yo con algunas
contadicciones” (my other self with some contradictions) Antoni Socias
and Caramo Fanta Camara. A project which explains a vivid picture of
black and White trading places with each other. He has his own art
company "Ifreecan Creative Mind Works" and is currently working on
several pieces of paintings, sculptures, drawings and Hip hop related
art works and projects to be exhibited at an art exposition on the 14 of November 2012 in Seville.
Here are some of his works
Title: "Power growing strong
and hard to die like a baobab tree"
Title: “Mi
otro yo con algunas contadicciones” (My other self with some
contradictions) Antoni Socias and Caramo Fanta Camara.
"Sane Land Confusion"
from the unreleased series (Urbanized seeds)
"same unknown K"
For more about Ifreecan, check him on
https://www.facebook.com/ifree.can.3?ref=ts&fref=ts#!/caramo?fref=ts
