(APS) – The tribute exhibition, organized for the artist Anta Germaine Gaye at the former Cap Manuel courthouse, in Dakar, as part of Dak’Art 2024, magnifies the elegance of the women of Saint- Louis, her birthplace, where she has recreated certain family spaces decorated with her coaster paintings commonly called “suweer”.
The exhibition venue, recomposed like a real old-fashioned house in “Ndar” (Saint-Louis), with a large resting courtyard at the back under the tree, highlights through different rooms, its brightly colored canvases or portraits of elegant women in his image.
The visual artist whose “originality of works sometimes comes from audacity”, according to curator Alioune Badiane, explores in her artistic creations a diversity of under-glass painting techniques, but also the framing of her canvases ranging from from wood to iron.
His “relentless” work is referenced to his cultural heritage, because “neither the content nor the framing of the paintings stray far from the teachings of the ancients,” believes Mr. Badiane.
In this exhibition, the artist recreates identically the interiors of the beginning of the century, these women’s rooms where we find all the old instruments, including the treadle sewing machine, the coffee grinder, the old vintage wooden radio, iron, among others.
In addition, we also find the colonial helmet on the coat rack, the “wakhandé” (iron trunk used as a wardrobe), the porcelain, the gramophone to distill good music, the censer, the floor mat tiles, portraits of the family and marabouts hung on the wall.
”Glass is something precious, we don’t get rid of it,” she suggests.
Among the visual artists of Senegal, Aissatou Anta Germaine Gaye, retired professor of artistic education, is one of those who live on a daily basis the principle of rootedness and openness advocated by the late president-poet, Léoplod Sedar Senghor, said Mr. Badiane. He believes that elegance is always present in his works.
”Idol, reference” for many artists. Tribute to Anta Germaine Gaye, godmother of the 15e Dakar Biennale of Contemporary African Art, came at its right time, believe some visitors met.
