A portrait of Soly Cissé by Kehinde Wiley (2008).
About:
Untitled, 2013.
Soly Cissé (1969, Dakar) is a painter and sculptor who introduces creatures both animalistic and human, creating a dream-like setting to reveal a tragic beauty. His paintings emphasize silhouettes and contrasting colors in order to draw attention to the duality between tradition and modernity.
Intuitive rather than conceptual Cisse’s paintings combines a sensuality of touch that is born out of the aesthetics of Dakar as manifest in its music and textiles and the vibrancy of its multi ethnic trading culture. The cost of modernity is a common theme – the natural world being overrun by man’s artificial constructs – the animals of his childhood hunting days now running from urbanisation rather than the hunter’s arrow. There is also a strong spiritual and symbolic almost riddle-like quality to his work, animals in their innocence, appearing as if in a dream, powerless, yet conveying an important meaning that the modern world, Cissé seems to say, is blind to.
Untitled, 2013.
After graduating from the Fine Arts Academy of Dakar in 1996, his rapid progress has enabled him to travel across international borders, making his work – poetic yet wild, in search of freedom – known and appreciated.
Untitled, 2011.
He has already achieved international recognition where he has held numerous exhibitions (France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Great Britain, U.S.A), but he has also made his presence felt on an international level, participating in highly prestigious exhibitions, in particular “Africa Remix” at the Centre Pompidou, dedicated to the adventure of a new generation of artists who represent Africa.
Untitled, 2013.
Courtesy: Mariane Ibrahim Gallery, Seattle)