Galerie Cécile Fakhoury is pleased to present What the Sea Whispers, a solo exhibition by Rachel Marsil, hosted at the Sokhamon Hotel as part of the 14th edition of Partcours in Dakar.
For her second solo exhibition in Senegal, Rachel Marsil engages in a poetic dialogue with the Sokhamon Hotel's singular architecture. Built in the early 2000s on Dakar's small corniche, facing the Atlantic Ocean, the hotel-originally conceived as a maternity clinic and a center for balneotherapy-has since become the embodiment of the artistic vision of its founder, Rama Simone Farah, and the craftsmanship of the artisans who brought this extraordinary place to life.
The reception hall known as "Hutt Bi" ["The Courtyard" in Wolof], where the exhibition is held, is imbued with a constellation of signs and symbols, of colors and materials, opening up a spiritual dimension with both African and universal resonances. Upon entering, visitors are struck by the verticality of the space and by the presence of a quiet, powerful, boundless nature. It is no accident that one reaches this room after descending many steps: everything here invites introspection, a descent toward the depths of one's own soul. In Wolof, Sokhamon means "if you knew," but also "if there is consciousness." It is a place in which one can re-root oneself in the search for meaning that defines human existence.
It is within this context that Rachel Marsil unfolds her artistic reflection in the form of a visual odyssey nourished by the imaginary world of Drexciya, a duo of techno musicians based in Detroit, USA. In the late 1990s, they imagined an underwater realm where the unborn children of Black women thrown overboard during the transatlantic slave trade would have survived. These sacrificed beings would have founded a submerged city, giving rise to a new people of warriors and survivors: the Drexciyans. Under the artist's brush, the inhabitants of this Black Atlantis emerge, intertwining with the organic forms of the hotel, shaping a new narrative around the Atlantic and its place in the history of enslavement.
Water appears everywhere in the artist's works-a shifting, supple expanse of blue, a site of possibility that contrasts with the earthy tones of the building while echoing the nearby ocean. The figures who populate this visual mythology often appear alone on the canvas, captured in a moment of suspension, between two gestures. Their faces-whose features recall certain African masks-are turned toward us, yet their gaze, undefined and infinite, reaches beyond appearances and beyond time. They challenge us to consider the meaning of our presence: are we here in consciousness - Sokhamon?
With subtlety, Rachel Marsil frees herself in this series from the constraints of reality and representation. Drawing on classical genres such as portraiture and still life, she infuses the images with a mysterious dimension. Something in the composition always captures our attention, even when it is difficult to name. The unusual color fields, shifting lights, and objects-cowries and shells-seem to belong to another realm whose whisper one must learn to hear. The sense that emerges is one that connects us to a collective unconscious, a nomadic imaginary that holds a timeless and shared memory.
What the Sea Whispers invites viewers into a total artwork. From the canvases to the walls that hold them, everything encourages an aesthetic experience through which we reconnect with consciousness and the universal quest for meaning that runs through human history.
Delphine Lopez
Director, Galerie Cécile Fakhoury - Dakar
