Jean Servais Somian trained between Côte d’Ivoire and Switzerland, at the Georges GHANDOUR woodwork and cabinet-making centre in Abidjan, at the Grand-Bassam craft centre and then at the Daniel Beck design and concept agency in Lausanne. After many years spent between Africa and Europe, his creations are a blend of cultures. Produced in very small series and endowed with a strong personality, his pieces, which sometimes border on sculpture, are nonetheless functional and utilitarian.

His contemporary design carries with it an ancestral element. One of his distinctive features lies in his choice of materials, such as coconut, ebony and amazaque wood, but also in his reinterpretation of everyday African objects such as basins, sponges and old fishermen’s pirogues. The result is striking furniture with pure lines.