Notes

Born and currently living in Dakar, Solly Cissé is one of the most highly considered artists from Senegal. He is a sculptor, photographer, and video producer, but is best known as a contemporary mixed media painter. Cissé graduated from l’École Nationale des Beaux-Arts in Dakar in 1996. His paintings are influenced by the politically unstable environment in which he grew up, and often express anger against social inequalities and injustices in his country. Cissé’s paintings are a juxtaposition of reality and imagination where human forms morph into unrecognisable mythical animal shapes, constructed through the use of random lines and texture created by drips of paint. The inclusion of letters, barcodes, and numbers bring additional complexity to his work. The artist says of his paintings, “I think and reflect a lot about humans and their relationships. Relationships between humans, the confrontation between humans and nature, humans and religion and then I challenge myself and experiment”.

Cissé has exhibited extensively in both Senegal and internationally, including the 1998 São Paulo Biennale; the 2000 Havana Biennial; and the 2006 Biennale de l’Art African Contemporain in Dakar. His work was included in Africa Remix: Contemporary Art of a Continent, which was shown in numerous cities in Europe and Japan, and Johannesburg between 2004 and 2007. His work is represented in public collections in Spain and Senegal, and worldwide in private collections.