His work features silhouettes of men and women, often in black and white. His human depictions have characteristically flat shapes that are angular and long, with slits for eyes. Often, his female figures are drawn in a crouched position or moving as if they are dancing in a traditional African way. He adopted elements of West African masks and sculptures into his own art, with a technique that utilized cubism to simplify his figures into lines and planes. He employed a narrow range of color, tone and value, most often using greens, browns, mauves, and blacks, with his human forms in darker shades of the present colors of the painting. He created emotional impact with subtle gradations of color, often using concentric circles to influence the viewer to focus on a specific part of the painting.