For his third solo exhibition at the Cécile Fakhoury Gallery and his first in France, Serigne Ibrahima Dieye -a rising figure on the Senegalese art scene- presents Jungle noire. In this new opus, the artist continues, like his two previous series -Paraboles d’un règne sauvage and Métamorphoses ondulatoires-, to investigate the turpitudes and evils that agitate and tear our contemporary societies by pointing out the bad behaviors and failings of a humanity in perdition.
Violence, thirst for power, myths of glory, value crisis, injustice, corruption, inequalities, so many social, economic and political issues that he vehemently denounces through his multifaceted work. Articulated around the pictorial medium, his artistic practice stems from a combination of supports and techniques at the crossroads of painting, drawing and collage that he does not hesitate to extend to other forms such as sculpture and installation. Each work is an opportunity to invest a subject that the artist draws from an observation and an analysis, as lucid as critical, of the world around him. It is in his daily environment, in the suburbs of Dakar where he lives and works, that Dieye draws his inspiration.
He captures the news and history of his country as well as those of other African countries where he condemns the misdeeds and abuses of all those who oppress, weaken, invisibilize and kill such as Moussa Dadis Camara, former self-proclaimed president of Guinea whose trial of the massacres of 157 civilians of the stadium of Conakry 2009, is the starting point of his new body of work. The artist spares no one and his observation is without appeal: «I want to denounce this society where the law of the strongest reigns, where everyone tries to harm his neighbor as if we were in the jungle». To express this brutality, to show this darkness, he explores human nature in its animality. «In a world where violence is everywhere, I wonder if we are human or animal». So, like a fabulist, Dieye invents hybrid characters, anthropomorphic creatures that form a fantastic bestiary where birds of prey, predators and other ferocious monsters cross paths. Even if he feeds himself with images, documents himself and sometimes takes notes, he does not define anything in advance and prefers to transpose his ideas directly onto canvas or blank paper, without any preparatory sketch. Subjects and figures are constructed simultaneously on the spot, in the course of a gesture animated by the urgency to do, to say, to reveal.
His compositions in various formats depict a chaotic, hostile, disturbing world where humanity has gone astray and is no more than a shadow of its former self, an army of masked or flayed zombies, threatening faceless and nameless silhouettes whose outlines are diluted in an accumulation of circles using a Bic pen that has become emblematic of his touch. Through these shocking allegories whose frontality does not fail to impact us, he forces us to face the reality of the world to urge us to change our behavior. Like a conscientious objector, his approach is clear, direct and straightforward, as evidenced by the explicit titles that accompany his works.
As an artist whose privileged position allows him to be seen and heard, Serigne Ibrahima Dieye feels invested with a mission and intends to do a useful work so that his universal message resounds with force to everyone. To become the spokesman of the voiceless to change the trajectory of the world, the stakes are high but hope seems to be allowed since Mankind is perfectible. More than ever, painting is an act of resistance, a deep commitment to oneself, to others, to the world.
Ludovic Delalande
Curator at the Louis Vuitton Foundation
