The Beautiful Risk of Showing Your Work: A Solo Exhibition in Mauritius

Expo 2022

There is a particular kind of fear that many artists know. It is not the fear of the blank canvas. That one I have made peace with over the years, since when inspiration is away, I watch TV while waiting for its return. What I want to talk about is the fear of opening a venue's doors, hanging your work on the walls, and standing beside it while strangers decide what they think of it and of you. A solo exhibition is exactly that. It is one of the most frightening things I do, and at the same time one of the most stimulating. The two feelings never separate. They arrive together, and they stay together until the very last visitor leaves.

I want to write about the beautiful risk of showing your work and share my truth about a solo exhibition in Mauritius. I want to write honestly about what a solo show really involves, because people sometimes imagine it as a glamorous evening of samosas and compliments. I am the last one to complain about samosas, but behind an opening night lies a long, demanding, and deeply personal journey that very few people see.

Behind the artistic adventure, there is a financial one

A solo exhibition is, first and foremost, an artistic journey. You spend months, sometimes years, building a body of work that hangs together, that tells a story, that lets people walk into your world and stay there for a while. That part is pure joy, even if it is sometimes too emotional for me.

But there is a second adventure that nobody warns you about: the financial one. A solo exhibition costs money. Renting a venue, framing, printing, transport, an opening reception, and promotion. It all adds up quickly, and most of it must be paid before a single painting is sold. An artist who wants to launch a solo exhibition must be financially solid and must walk in fully prepared to lose some money. I say this not to discourage anyone, but because it is the truth. If you go into an exhibition expecting it to pay for itself and make an enormous profit, you set yourself up for heartbreak. If you approach the cost as an investment in your own voice and visibility, you protect yourself. Sales, when they come, are a gift. They should never be the only measure of whether the display was worth it.

Expo 2014

You are not only showing paintings but also yourself

Here is the part that makes it so emotionally heavy. When you hang twenty or thirty of your paintings on a wall, you are not only showing objects. You are showing part of your inner self. Every canvas carries a piece of how I see the world, what I love about this island, what frightens me, and what I dream about. The colours, the dense little motifs, the dark outlines of the Zafer style come from somewhere inside me. To put that on public display is to make yourself visible in a way that is almost precarious.

And with that visibility comes the risk of being judged and criticised. Not everyone will like what you do. Some people will love it, some will be indifferent, and some will tell you, sometimes to your face, exactly what they would have done differently. You must find a way to stand in the middle of all those opinions without losing your footing. This is where I am the most fragile because every word exchange affects me. But knowing that intellectually does not always protect you on the day of the exhibition. You feel exposed because you are exposed. That is simply part of the deal.

The problem of finding a venue in Mauritius

In Mauritius, one of the hardest obstacles is purely practical: where do you exhibit? Finding a venue here without investing a great deal of money is genuinely difficult. The few good spaces that exist are expensive, and for an independent painter, the cost can be the single thing that makes a show impossible.

It was not always this way. Long ago, municipalities offered artists affordable venues to show their work. My very first solo exhibition, back in 1996, was held at the "Galerie Max Boullé" in Rose-Hill. It was such a beautiful space, the kind of room that made your paintings look like they belonged somewhere important. At that time, the only fee asked was for the artist to offer one painting to the Municipality of Beau-Bassin Rose-Hill. This was a way for the Municipality to build a collection of original paintings, and the artist did not have to pay anything in advance. That gallery is now closed, and with it went one of the rare places where an artist starting out could find a proper, dignified setting without going into debt.

I truly wish our municipalities would reconsider opening venues for artists. And I wish the government would give us some real consideration. Visual artists contribute to the cultural identity of this country. We keep the image of Mauritius alive, and we carry it to the world. A few accessible, well-kept exhibition spaces would change everything for a whole generation of local painters. It is not a luxury. It is the infrastructure that allows an artistic culture to breathe.

Expo 2025

The emotional weight and planning are an act of faith

I will be open about something I have now started putting into words regularly. An exhibition is, for me, an intensely emotional moment, and living with my mental health problems makes it especially hard. I must hope, far in advance, that I will be well enough on the day of the exhibition.

For someone who lives with bipolar disorder and depression, planning is an act of faith. Normally, I never know how I will feel tomorrow, let alone in six or seven months. A solo show must be organised that far in advance: the venue, the framing, the invitations, the work itself. So, when I commit to a date, I am making a quiet bet on my own future state of mind. I am hoping for the best and building toward it without any guarantee that my health will cooperate.

I share this not for sympathy, but because I suspect many artists carry something similar and feel they must hide it. The same sensitivity that makes the planning so frightening is often the very thing that feeds the work. The exhibition becomes, in a strange way, a reason to stay anchored, a date on the horizon to move toward. There is something healing in that, even when the road there is hard.

Why I believe in solo shows over group shows

After many years of doing both, I have become convinced that solo exhibitions serve an artist far better than group ones. In a group show, you might be given the space for a single painting, maybe two. One painting cannot tell anyone who you really are. A visitor looks at it, perhaps admires it, and moves on to the next artist. They leave with no sense of your artistic world, your obsessions or your evolution.

A solo exhibition is completely different. It gives you the room to show the full extent of your talent. People can see how you handle, for example, the sea or a portrait, how your colours shift from one subject to another, and how a single style runs like a thread through dozens of works. They begin to understand your language. They walk out knowing your universe, not just one window into it. That is the difference between being noticed and being understood, and for an artist, being understood is everything.

Worth every fear

So, is a solo exhibition worth all of this: the cost, the exposure, the criticism, the emotional gamble, the struggle to even find a wall to hang on? For me, yes. Every time.

It is frightening precisely because it matters. You are putting your inner self in a room and inviting the world to look. You may lose money. You may be judged. You may spend months hoping your own mind will be steady enough to see it through. But you also give people the rare chance to step fully into the world you have built, and occasionally, someone walks in, stands in front of a canvas, and you can see in their face that they have understood exactly what you were trying to say. That moment makes it all worthwhile.

If you are an artist in Mauritius thinking about your first solo show, my honest advice is this: prepare your finances, protect your heart, plan as far ahead as you bravely can, and do it anyway. The island needs more of our voices on the walls. And if any municipality or any part of the government is reading this, please give us the spaces to be seen.

We will fill them with colours.