Oumarou Ilboudo, born in Ouagadougou in 1983, is a batik artist.

He began his formation in 2002 at the Centre National d’Artisanat et d’Art (CNAA) in Ouagadougou and since 2005 manages the center’s batik department.

The subjects that Oumarou Ilboudo deals with in his batiks span a broad range. A major part of his works is dedicated to traditional life in Burkina Faso. The harvest, daily work, village life and dancing are recurring motives. Recently he is taking joy in alienating these idyllic settings by incorporating skyscrapers and big city skylines in his designs.

Along with this, there are more intellectually demanding works to be discovered, such as the two large pictures Entrée en ville  and Sortie de la ville, which are concerned with the nature of big cities as places that attract the rural population, as everything seems to be possible there, and which they leave frustrated and hurt after discovering the decline behind the façade. Or the composition L’égalité entre l’homme et la femme pour un lendemain meilleur , that uses numerous symbols to depict the cultural heritage of Burkina Faso which equally involves both sexes. Oumarou Ilboudo is an excellent designer with an enviably effortless way to stage people and objects.

At the same time he is a master of the batik technique and continuously extends it with new textures and color combinations. Some of his works resemble in fact impressionistic paintings. He makes a point of working without retouches and other tricks of the trade.