Grégoire Devin and Sarah Elqa to Contribute Paintings to Kennedy Human Rights Gala in New York

Grégoire Devin and Sarah Elqa will donate paintings to the charity auction associated with the 2026 Ripple of Hope Award Gala in New York, supporting human rights and social justice. Artists Grégoire Devin and Sarah Elqa will contribute two paintings to the charity auction associated with the Ripple of Hope Award Gala in New York on December 9, 2026. Devin’s Woman on the Island and Elqa’s Beyond Color, We Are One have been selected to support the work of the Robert & Ethel Kennedy Human Rights Center.

The married artists have also been invited to attend the dinner. Their contributions follow their support for a Kennedy charity gala in Zurich last year, where they met Kerry Kennedy, daughter of Robert F. Kennedy and niece of President John F. Kennedy. Both look forward to seeing her again in New York this December.

“At a time when human rights are under pressure in so many parts of the world, contributing a painting is a way for me to support a cause I deeply care about. Sarah and I are grateful to support the work of the Robert & Ethel Kennedy Human Rights Center and to take part in the New York gala,” Devin says.

The event will honor five Ripple of Hope Award recipients: filmmaker Spike Lee; investor and philanthropist Glenn Hutchins; entrepreneur and philanthropist Dan Olofsson; Jessica Sarowitz, an impact investor and founder of Miraflores Films; and Rajiv J. Shah, president of the Rockefeller Foundation. The award recognizes work advancing human rights, equity and social justice.

Although Devin and Elqa maintain distinct artistic practices, the human figure is a recurring subject for both. Their contributions bring together two approaches to the body, identity and the relationship between individuals and their surroundings.

Elqa, a self-taught Franco-Moroccan artist born in Morocco, works between abstraction and figuration. Before concentrating on painting, she spent more than a decade in fashion design, an experience that informed her approach to texture, rhythm and composition. Human figures recur in her work alongside passages of gestural abstraction, with color connecting the two.

Her contribution to the auction, Beyond Color, We Are One, depicts an abstract female figure built from areas of color and paper collage. Elqa describes its layered fragments as references to different origins, histories and memories, brought together within a single body. The composition explores the coexistence of cultural difference and shared humanity.

That interest extends across her figurative work, in which faces, silhouettes and bodies carry themes of femininity, identity and inner strength. In her abstract paintings, forms overlap or dissolve, allowing gesture and color to carry the emotional content. Her work has been exhibited in the United States and Asia, including New York and Seoul.

Charitable giving is also an established part of Elqa’s practice. Alongside her contribution to the Kennedy gala in Zurich, her website documents donations to fundraising events benefiting the Princess Grace Foundation and other social and humanitarian organizations.

For Devin, Woman on the Island belongs to a longstanding interest in the sea. Maritime themes return in his recent series Les Baigneuses, which places figures in coastal settings and draws on a Mediterranean palette of blues, turquoise and pastels.

Black and white provide the starting point for many of his paintings. Faces, bodies, words and drawn marks establish the composition; color follows, changing its rhythm and atmosphere. Written fragments share the canvas with figures and gestures, inviting attention to move between the image and the text.

In Les Baigneuses, the density of his urban compositions gives way to water, open space and reclining bodies. The setting changes, while his interest in human presence and introspection continues. Woman on the Island connects this exploration of the sea with his forthcoming contribution in New York.

Devin works across painting, drawing and sculpture, using materials that include acrylic, oil stick, ink and collage. His work is represented by Ai Bo Gallery in New York. His paintings will next be on view with the gallery at Art Palm Beach in January 2027.

The New York auction will bring the two artists’ works into a shared fundraising setting. One painting approaches the figure through maritime imagery; the other uses color and layered fragments to consider identity and belonging. Both will be offered in support of the center’s human rights work.

Grégoire Devin’s work can be viewed on his website, www.gregoiredevin.com. Sarah Elqa’s work can be viewed at www.sarahelqa.com.