Tuesday, June 30, 2009

I CAN'T STOP THINKING ABOUT THE WORK OF SOLY CISSE!


Survie


Hivernage
Victims of Inundation

I don't know but something abt this artist touches my soul !
I went to our local book store and I saw this beautiful book called
"Entre Reflexivite Maturite et Solytude" as a testament of his work, ok I have seen this particular book several times, postcards of his work and I was thinking to myself what's the big deal abt this man..well let me tell you I browsed through the entire book I couldn't stop turning the pages to see his work and mostly read his story
I learned the story of a courageous man whose family didn't understand his passion for colors and brushes but who decided to pursue it anyways
I learned that his father gave him the love for images being that he was working in a medical lab he would bring radios at home
I learned that his parents relationship affected him
I learned about his pusuit for exellence , that if he was going to be artist he had to study his craft, and that he did bttw various residencies in different parts of the world
I learned abt his pride as a man who's aware that he's one of the best contemporary Senegalese artists and that it's ok to be proud of one's acomplishments
I learned simply a lot from looking at his pieces and reading his story
I can't wait to buy this beautiful book and offer it to someone who would appreciate it
In the meantime here is a great profile of this artist by Hanne Weskot:

Artist Soly Cissé likes to laugh. And he has every reason to do so. At age 39 he is among his country Senegal’s internationally best-known artists. He represents his country at major exhibitions and biennials all over the world, for example in São Paulo, Havana, and of course Dakar, the city where he was born in 1969, and where he still lives today. He has had solo exhibitions at the Luiggi Pecci Museum in Prato, Italy; at the Rautenstrauch-Joest Museum in Cologne; at the Maerzgalerie in Leipzig; at the Galerie La Trace in Paris; and at the Galerie Dany Keller in Munich, where he showed paintings, drawings, and pastels in a show titled Existences.

If one takes a closer look at this exhibition, one would have trouble believing that Cissé is a cheerful and happy person. What he shows us in these images is no longer an ideal world, but a lost, doomed one. The increase in catastrophes gives humanity a bitter foretaste of the end. Cissé is especially solicitous of animals, because he has had a very close relationship to them since his childhood, but in accordance with the traditional rules of his religion he can no longer touch them as an adult if he doesn’t want to be rendered impure. To remain close to them, he paints them, not as specific individuals, but rather as they come to his mind. For this reason, in his paintings, they often resemble fabulous creatures more than the living animals we know in reality. He paints them with their muzzles opened wide in fear and their teeth bared, so that one almost hears their wailing, for example, in the large painting Victims of Inundation, where masses of water sweep everything away, a symbolic rendering of a flood with terrible consequences for people and animals in Dakar three years ago. This incident showed him once again that the world is moving in a direction from which it can no longer be steered away. He wants to draw our attention to this in his work. Despite all his cheerfulness, Cissé has a very serious message.

Cissé is not interested solely in environmental disasters. He is also concerned about the loss of what makes his own little world lovable and worth living in. This includes tradition, which gives people’s lives a rhythm and order. It sets limits, which results in respectful dealings with each other. Especially in a city of millions, like Dakar, they are exposed to so many influences that they can hardly find anything to hold onto. His drawing Lost World shows young people’s lack of chances. These young people seem naked, exposed, disoriented, and distorted. They live on the street like animals and have no stability.

Again and again, Cissé writes across his paintings rows of numbers reminiscent of commercial barcodes. Everything is counted, weighed, and categorized; only the human being no longer knows his place in the world. Like the Dancer in the Mountains, he is alone and thrown back upon himself. But there he finds an audience, at least in animals. Yet something uncanny is brewing in nature. Accordingly, Cissé’s work has something roughened, agitated, even threatening about it. Sometimes he covers the canvas with thin paper to produce structures on the surface that seem like scars, and recall the network of cracks in the varnish on the paintings of the Old Masters. Despite the weight of content that Cissé’s paintings bear due to their troubling themes, they are never moralizing. That eases some of their disturbing quality. The viewer can breathe an intermittent sigh of relief, because what seems so terrible in an image turns out to be completely harmless. For example, in After the Train, where the tracks lead into a void, to the right and left of them, animals tumble in confusion. Is this an apocalyptic scenario? No, he laughs, and points to the dead fish under the crossties. Far and wide, no water, so where does the fish come from? From a market stand, because on market day the women in Senegal like to set up their stands in the track bed. When a train approaches with deafening noise, everyone flees with their possessions, and sometimes a dead fish can be left behind.

Cissé definitely has a sense of the comedy of everyday life. He sketches a lot, observes people and animals, how they present themselves, and the faces and grimaces they make. He thereby seeks the vocabulary, so to speak, with which he can create images. His work is never a direct reproduction of what he sees or experiences; it is always a transformation. For Cissé, reality is always simultaneously an occasion and an excuse for creating art.
*Pics courtesy of Antoine Tempe and Gallery Stella and Vega
One last thing if anyone knows him personally please ask him to create a website , it would be awesome for us his fans:)
Djaaa my brothas from Senegal sont trop dedans:)
Eyee Wayee:)

GAMBIAN WRITER, DAYO FORSTER AND HER FIRST NOVEL "READING THE CEILING"!






Dayo's ancestors are of Krio ancestry who emigrated to Gambia during colonial time. Dayo grew up and calls home Gambia,she left her homecountry at the age of 18 years old and went on to study statistics and economy.
Writting came rather late to her, she was 35 years old and living in America but it seems that the times she spent during her childhood in the bathroom of her family home reading,or staring at the floor
It's interesting to me to see how talent is developped in one's mind ...
It took her 2 years to finish her first novel "Reading the Ceiling" ; it's a story about the choices we make in life and how they impact the course of our lives ...
The main personnage Ayodele is at the crossroad of her life as a young woman and she has to choose btw staying in Africa getting married as a second wife, or moving to Europe pursuing her academic goals while tasting the sour and sweet of her first love...
Dayo embarks us with Ayodele on the pursuit of hapiness through each choice..
Will def' try to read this book!
Here's her webbie:
Djaa my Gambian sistas sont dedans aussi:)
Eyeee Wayee:)

Monday, June 22, 2009

FASHION STYLIST, WRITER, TV PRESENTATEUR, SOUL SINGER, SHE TRULY CAN DO IT ALL GIVE IT UP FOR MISS LINDIWE SUTTLE!


Beautiful Woman

Nice photo



Pretty features, a classy and eclectic sense of style, Beyonce Viviva Foxx as work references, a fashion tv show, a budding soul and jazz career with the Collective Imagination Band..truly Lindiwe has been working her butt off ...
She could have easily just taken advantage of her mum's hard work ; (Felicia Mazuba the equivalent of Oprah Winfrey in SA ) and did just average ..no she chose as any real fabulafricana to go and get hers!

Before moving back to SA she worked with Tina Knowles as a stylist, some of Beyonce's red carpet outfits were selected by this sista . She's also styled for pretty boy Blair Underwood, Ciara, Cynthia Nixon ect..

When in South Africa, armed with her guts she filmed a pilot fashion show which ended being picked up, she's also a TV presentateur on the African Chanel (US and UK)

On the musical side of things she's the lead singer for the 10 members band Rus Nerwich and the Collective Imagination...and sista can def sing..it's funny because I thought that she would be just ok but to my surprise I really enjoyed listening to her voice..

Here's her personal webbie:web.mac.com/lindiwesuttle

Here's a little video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrgNCGUr3tA

Def' somebody to remenber in my book, I love her guts:)

Djaa my SA sistas are doing it:)

Eyee Wayee:)

Friday, June 19, 2009

FACING MYSELF AU NATUREL!







Demba Joob, a friend, a wonderful photographer, video director and hip hop soldier within the Senegalese comunity offered me the chance to see myself through his lenses, it was a wonderful and tough experience...tough you may wonder why?

Tough because he told me that he wanted me free of painting in my face, yes I had to come ' face naked" I thought to myself is he crazy I want enhanced pictures..

Wonderful experience because it allowed me to see where I am physically at this particular moment, with the things that I may like abt myself and those I may not..
I looked at the film and thought waw 30 hein yaye ...the body does change, the skin does change, this was just me...up to me to embrace myself or not..so I chose too ...difficult at times but I did I face : I,Je, Yo, Mou..
now it's up to me to feel and look even better the next time I'm offered a photo session..

Here's Demba's website:
wwww.puxxus.com

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

30 FABULAFRICAN BROTHAS REPRESENTING FOR US!








Frederic Kanoute, MALI, Soccer Paya, Mosk Founder in Spain , Hubby



Djimon Hounsou, BENIN, Actor, Social Activist, Husband and Father


Alain Mabanckou, CONGO,Noted Writer, Professor

Thomas Tapeh, LIBERIA, NFL Playa




Amr Waked EGPYT, Actor


Cherif Ndiayes, Model and Father


Borris Kodjoe, GHANA, Actor, Producer, Husband and Father

LS, GABON, Singer
Madalitso Muthiya,ZAMBIA, Golf Playa

Knaan , SOMALIA, Singer and Social Activist



Marcus Samuelson, ETHIOPIA,Cullinary Chef and Husband






Idris Elba, SIERRA LEONE, Actor Dj Father

Oumar Mukhtar, LYBIA, Resistant to Italian conquest of his coutry, National Hero



Tcheka, CAP Vert, Singer



Georges, GAMBIA,Model




Kaysha, CONGO, Singer ,Producer and Father


Roshdy Zem, MAROC, Actor, Husband and Father
Mahmoud Keldi, LES ILES COMORES, Architect


Paulo Pascoal, ANGOLA, Model Singer and Actor




Osie Umenyora, NIGERIA, NFL Playa


Joel Haikali, NAMIBIA, Actor and Movie Director


Akon, SENEGAL, Singer, Producer, Businessman, Husband , Father

Gad Elmaleh, MAROC,Comedian and Movie Director


Singuila, IVORY COAST, Singer


Jo Wilfried Tsonga, CAMEROUN, Tennis Champion

Emmanuel Jal, SUDAN, War Survivor and Hip Hop Artist



Djibril Zonga, CENTRE AFRIQUE, Model and Burgeoning Actor


David Adjaye, GHANA, Architect


Mustafa Maluka, SOUTH AFRICA, Visual Artist and Hip Hop Head




Corneille, RWANDA, Singer, Social Activist, Rwandan War Survivor, Husband
So here they are my current top 30 Fabulafrican brothas:)
It was difficult picking them because there are so many other great African doing great thing in the world
but I chose these ones because they represent Africa in its diversity, different styles,
some may be your type physically some may be your type on the intellectual side of things
I would be curious to know which ones re in your top 5, drop me a coment:)
If you get a chance listen to this song called "You Will Know" some of my old school peeps may remenber it :
You Will Know_Black Men United (CLICK ON THE NAME)
It's everything I would tell my man, my brotha, enjoy:)
Djaa our African brothas are just badd:)
Eyeee Wayee:)

AFRO BOHEME, COOL HAIR ACCESSORIES FOR THE GAL IN YOU!










Afro Minie


Unique Ring


Feelin blue


Do you remenber when those u used to be in fashion?:)
Cutee



Subtle but still funky


Cute hat



I usually tend to feature only African designers because there's a lack of a African representation through the media but when one of our African American sista does something I really love I try to share it with you all:)
Deitra the designer specialises in crochet design, inspired by the seventies and color she offers her clientele hat, hair bands,rings, scarves, clothe
I really like her funky and feminine head bands, def' a cool look for the summer
and for those days when you feel a bit down:)
Her webbie:
Djaa our African American sistas sont dedans aussi:)
Eyeee Waye:)