Dago Biography
Ousmane Ndiaye Dago was born in Ndiobene, Senegal, in 1951. He studied Plastic Arts at the Institute of Fine Arts of Senegal and Graphic Arts at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp. During his artistic career he has collaborated with famous musicians such as Youssoun Dour and Thione Seck and has participated in numerous exhibitions both in Senegal and in Europe, including the Dakar Biennale, the Venice Biennale, the Spazia Gallery in Bologna, the Brescia Arte Studio Contemporary, the Franco Riccardo Gallery of Naples and the Rocca di Umbertide Exhibition Center for Contemporary Art.
Ousmane Ndiaye Dago's work is part of the innovation of contemporary African art. He represents female figures, usually young naked African women, whose forms are hidden and at the same time emphasized by various fabrics and materials. The artist carefully wraps the fabrics around the shapes of the models and with brushstrokes of mud, chalk, clay and spots of color that dry on their skin, transforms them into a sort of geological simulacra or marble "femme-terre". Dago expertly covers the faces of the models with their hair modeled with mud and clay, enhancing the tension of the representation. Finally, by fixing the shapes and poses of the models with the photographic shot, the skin becomes a surface on which the photographer-sculptor creates plastic forms.
Women become earth because they take on its colours, shape and consistency. Dago carefully prepares the "scenography", the "actresses" and their "costumes" as in a theater. The idea of the femme-terre and the "theatre of cruelty" is so intense that it makes you wonder if she will ever want to update it. Ousmane Ndiaye Dago is also an avid formalist: the refined and expertly composed eroticism of his groups has a classicist structure and the figures tend to bend and flex in a Grand Guignol atmosphere, underlining how much theater there is in his art.
