The Black Liquid Art Gallery is hosting an exhibition titled “Ancestral Metamorphosis” until January 30, 2025. This exhibition showcases the works of two renowned Senegalese artists, Soly Cissé and Seyni Awa Camara, who explore human transformations through a blend of ancestral myths and contemporary perspectives. Together, they redefine the boundaries between the real and the imaginary, the natural and the supernatural.
Metamorphosis as an artistic language
The central concept of the exhibition “Ancestral Metamorphosis” is metamorphosis. By examining the transformations of being and the connections between the human and the wild, the artists invite viewers to redefine the contours of human identity. Soly Cissé’s dreamlike paintings and hybrid creatures plunge us into a universe where matter and imagination merge. Complementing this, Seyni Awa Camara’s terracotta sculptures, rich in symbolism, celebrate resilience, life, and spiritual dialogue.
Their works engage with the invisible, transcending the limits of the tangible. Seyni Awa Camara and Soly Cissé use metamorphosis as a tool for reflecting on human existence, transforming their respective mediums—clay and paint—into vessels for universal stories.
Soly Cissé: between instinct and reason
Soly Cissé in exhibition “Ancestral Metamorphosis” delves into the depths of the unconscious with hybrid creatures that illustrate the tension between instinct and reason, past and present. His paintings, a fusion of African myths and contemporary expressionism, evoke a suspended reality where human figures blend with fantastical animal forms.
Soly Cissé’s work oscillates between dreams and archaism. Each painting is a chaotic dance of forms, colors, and textures where ancestral pasts converse with visions of an evolving future. Influences from masters like Francis Bacon and Jean-Michel Basquiat are evident in his pictorial virtuosity, combining figurative strength with symbolic power. For Soly Cissé, painting is a form of ritual, where each brushstroke embodies constant transformation. His hybrid creatures—half-human, half-animal—seem to emerge directly from the material, embodying universal fears and visions. These grotesque, fragmented figures, alternately sublime and monstrous, invite exploration of our fragmented reality and the multiplicity of human essence.
Soly Cissé‘s visual language blends African traditions with contemporary poetics. His works do not merely represent reality; they create a new reality where man merges with dreams, nightmares, and myths. Viewers are immersed in a universe that defies traditional categories, blending the familiar with the strange.
Seyni Awa Camara: the power of clay
Seyni Awa Camara in exhibition “Ancestral Metamorphosis” works within an artistic tradition that engages with the spiritual and mythical. Her sculptures, both archaic and contemporary, depict distorted figures reflecting the essence of the human condition. Reminiscent of fertility goddesses like the Venus of Willendorf, her works tackle universal themes such as motherhood, conflicts, and the dynamics of human relationships. For Seyni Awa Camara, clay is more than a material; it is a living element connecting past and present. Shaped and fired in the courtyard of her home, her sculptures carry a rich collective memory, woven from spirituality, myths, and daily life.
Seyni Awa Camara’s figures, with their deliberately dramatic proportions and striking deformations, transcend mere aesthetics to touch the universal. Each detail—a multitude of hands, expressions frozen in emotion—tells a story. These sculptures are testimonies to the struggles, hopes, and dreams that transcend cultural and temporal boundaries.
A universal dialogue
“Ancestral Metamorphosis” offers a space for dialogue between two unique artistic languages, inviting viewers to explore timeless themes of transformation, identity, and the connection between the tangible and the invisible. The works of Cissé and Seyni Awa Camara resonate as a call to revisit collective memories while engaging in a contemporary discourse on the human condition.