Cécile Fakhoury Gallery – Dakar is pleased to present the group exhibition Cour intérieure, bringing together the works of artists Elladj Lincy Deloumeaux, Rachel Marsil, and Kassou Seydou.
Entering an exhibition space can be compared to crossing the threshold into a new world. The passage is subtle, silent, sometimes even solitary. The body slows down, and the senses, on alert—, are ready to receive the artistic offerings that will soon be revealed. Immersed temporarily in this space, viewers are invited to participate in a creation that emerges from the collaboration of all actors: artworks, artists, scenographic feature, and curators. “Add your voice and enrich the dialogue!” whisper the works, now independent from the intimate connection they once had with their creators. “Bring your reflections, interpretations, memories, and emotions to join mine,” the artists suggest. The entire experience is guided by the scenographic arrangement. It unfolds on multiple levels: subjective, reflective, and sensory.
n this space where each one knows their role, the audience, multiple yet singular, becomes the most active participant of all. It is their movement through the space that strengthens the interconnectedness and the “meaning making.” Both physical and mental, this wandering gives rise to a near certainty: from this encounter, “we do not emerge unscathed.” (1)
Absorbed figures lost in introspection, human groups, a reclining woman, a seated man. Gazes that drift, others fixed. A family gathering, market vendors, fruits, deposited ceramics, plates, the sky... The rich dialogue oscillates between daydream and grounded everyday life. The vibrant color palettes and recurring motifs of Rachel Marsil and Kassou Seydou create a particular rhythm, which Elladj Lincy Deloumeaux’s pastel tones gently temper. A shared language emerges, moving in two directions: navigating between a private, intimate world and a collective, shared one—in a constant back-and-forth. In this in-between space, a meeting occurs. At the heart of the cour intérieure unfolding before us, the outside breaks in and the initially polarized space gradually becomes a stage for reconciliation. Like the arbre à palabres [the palaver tree] in the center of African courtyards, fruits and ceramic objects are placed at the center of the exhibition. The mat, an ancestral cultural symbol, rightly reminds us that the moments of sharing and gathering it evokes connect personal stories to the world.
Elladj Lincy Deloumeaux continues his exploration of the interconnection between a personal history and a plural world. The exclusively male figures he portrays share a similar introspective posture, from which a certain melancholy emerges. In these suspended moments, their wandering gazes raise a question: would we dare interrupt their thoughts to insert our own? And although politely invited into the heart of their intimacy, we remain discreet observers— gently kept, for instance, behind curtains slightly parted. With Deloumeaux, the approach is first contemplative. And at the end of the meditative walk, his canvases initiate, his sculptural work reveals itself, and settles in. Pots de ciel (2024), celestial fragments seemingly drawn directly from his paintings, bring us back to the here and now.
Rachel Marsil invites us to cast a tender gaze upon her female figures, whose features echo across multiple canvases. In a grammar of her own, the artist places the viewer face to face with her characters in studied, familiar poses, dear to her eye. Her painterly gesture becomes the mirror of a personal story—nourished by long-shared family narratives—interwoven with the broader one of a community. In this recent body of work, a triptych— Économie informelle [Informal economy] (2025)—occupies the central wall, creating a subtle articulation between the two spheres resonating throughout the exhibition space. Market scenes, moments of sharing or reflection among women... Each viewer is free to project their own story. Regardless of interpretation, the transition is initiated, and the scene gently guides us from the intimate I to the collective We. The fruits—crafted in wood, bronze, or ceramic—symbols of fertility and abundance, mediate the transition from canvas to volume. And it is precisely in this transition toward three-dimensionality that the collective bond tightens: leaving the surface to anchor in the ground themselves, Marsil’s sculptures become offerings.
A careful chronicler of Senegalese society for several decades, Kassou Seydou consistently depicts scenes from everyday life: family or community gatherings, market scenes, or workers absorbed in their tasks. His painting explores the many forms of collectivity while grounding them in individual—yet universal—narratives. It is this interplay between the intimate and the communal that his work weaves, canvas after canvas. All feature human figures: people in motion, in exchange, at work, with family, or at rest—figures in which anyone may recognize themselves. They evolve against colorful and vibrant backgrounds, animated by circular motifs that set their own pace. These characters seem to blend into their surroundings, as if never truly separated from them. What does this sensitive entanglement between ourselves and our environment say—between the space we inhabit and the one that inhabits us? In the scenographic layout, Kassou Seydou’s works welcome visitors and then close the journey in the last room, thus framing the more introspective paintings of Deloumeaux and Marsil.
A third path emerges between the intimate and the collective: that forged by the scenographic device, which stands as an actor in its own right within the exhibition. A third voice, too—that of the audience, responding to the invitation to step into the sensitive universe of the artists gathered in this Cour intérieure. A courtyard that, in a confined space-time, becomes a site of shared contemplation. The creative experience here seeks to be total, communal, yet also solitary. From this courtyard, each visitor will draw their own interpretations, resonances, and memories; carving an inner path that subtly joins with the artists’ voices—creating, in quiet harmony, the experience of a shared space.
(1) Traduction libre : Agnès Violeau, Pratiquer l’exposition – une écologie. Éditions Mix., 2024, 72 illustrated pages.
