Soly Cissé

From Dakar, Soly Cissé grew up by the sea. He expresses the beauty of nature which can be suddenly violent by myriads of colored elements: explosion of deep blues to translate the turbulent sea and the light of Africa, touches of white, yellow, red or black for volcanic rocks where children are seen fishing.

Everything starts with a black background: as a child, the artist was fascinated by the X-rays shown by his father who was a radiologist.

For him, black is the best revealer, just like the darkness which preceding the creation of the world.

For him, Art is a form of redemption and teaches the old values of tolerance and respect that inhabit people living a traditional way of life such as people of the Mandingue tribe.

The canvas is an arena on which to act …

Each canvas is a complex story with multiple layers. Characters tell of the unchanging rites of opposition and domination that inhabit the human and animal species while incorporating figures of wisdom and hope.

His technique is immediate action. From the outside to the center of the canvas, acts follow each other, elements play their role and can disappear with a brush stroke if a newcomer comes to appease the relationship. It does not matter that the artist has spent long hours giving it life. The important thing is that they existed and played their role.

Represented using their profile, such as the ancient Egyptian deities, recalling moreover the African origin of this civilization, the figures are ordered in kind of vertical panels. They stand out against a background from which faces, animals, hybrid beings half buried in impastos of pure colors emerge. Areas of more diluted painting play between background of black and give rythm to the space on canvas. Rows of numbers, letters, signs, almost illegible, scattered randomly suggest an attempt of finding some sort of system in reference to a mode of classification, or archive …? Although this search for stability and coherence is illusory in order to compensate for the loss of reference points in the disorder of the world, they constitute the language with which the artist has built his best compositions. We can admire in his works scenes of allegories evoking grace and protection through intercession as well as benevolent ancestors portraying the belief in a magical relationship between humans and animals.

His work is made on iron, canvases, plexiglass, and heterogeneous assembly of ready-made elements taken from art magazines and juxtaposition of collage on papers or on canvas of modular design.

A whole repertory of entangled signs without hierarchy overlap:  such as protective ancestors, destructive ghosts, or conversations with Andy Warhol, Ramses II and Dubuffet

Far from believing in a simplistic duality between good and evil, the artist remains in a space in permanent metamorphosis, leader of a world of spirits playing a role to accomplish a kind of exorcism. Ilab-design was conquered by the talent of this storyteller in pictures. His imaginary field is limitless and profoundly philosophical.

Exhibitions:

• 2019 Gallerie 38 : “Prête moi un rêve !” Casablanca Maroc
• 2018 Incandescences, Institut Français, Dakar, Sénégal
  • Champ de coton, Biennale de Dakar, Gorée, Sénégal Curiosité, Almadies Residence Ciring, Biennale de Dakar, Sénégal
• 2017 Support Support, Sulger-Buel Lovell, Londres, Royaume-Uni Les Mutants,
  • Fondation Dapper, Paris, France En 3D, Olivier Sultan et la galerie Art-Z, Paris, FranceLe Trait, Sulger-Buel Lovell, Londres, Royaume-Uni
  • Spirits in the Wind, Cloître des Billettes et Ellia Art Gallery, Paris. Galerie Arte, Dakar, Sénégal
• 2015 Galerie des Tuiliers, Bruxelles, Belgique Galerie Christian et Sulger, Londres, Royaume-Uni
• 2014Univers /Univers, Hôtel de Ville, Dakar, Sénégal
  •  M.I.A. Gallery, Seattle, USA
  • Volta Art Fair, Solo Show, M.I.A. Gallery, New  York, USA
• 2013 Chaleur d’été, galerie Tornabuoni Art, Paris, France
  • Galerie des Tuiliers, Lyon, France