During one I had the opportunity to visit an exhibition of an African artist named Ousmane Sow (the little Nouba). All his creations are made on a human scale and even larger for some work.
We were in August and it was really hot this year 2013
Still, he sculpts without a model. His material, he invents it. In a learned alchemy, it allows to macerate for years a number of products. This material is for him a work in
itself, a material that makes him almost as happy as the birth of his sculpture. He apply it to a framework made of iron, straw and jute, leaving nature and the material to share of freedom, opening the door to the unexpected. A fundamentally artistic attitude.
Both his life and his work are now deeply rooted in his country. He doesn’t imagine not sculpt elsewhere than in Senegal. And, while he lived for twenty years in France, more nothing and no one could make him leave his African land
Its characters seem to speak with simple gestures, the legendary memory of peoples. The faces express deeply human feelings, such as sadness, serenity and compassion. The pleasures shown are threatened pleasures, the struggles represented refer to those for the survival of cultures: the Nuba are massacred in Sudan, the great nomads are exhausted in Africa, the victorious battle of Little Big Horn was undoubtedly the song of the swan of the Indian nations
Biography
Ousmane Sow was born in Dakar in 1935, of a Saint-Louisian mother and a Dakar father of thirty
years his senior. He grew up in Reubeuss, one of the “hottest” districts of Dakar, where he received
an extremely strict upbringing during which his father made him responsible from a very young age. He
inherits from this father the rigor, the sense of duty, and a free spirit. On his death, and despite
an immense attachment to his mother, he decides to leave for Paris, without a penny in his pocket. It is
accommodates in the police stations, and knows the sweetness of a France then land
home. While practicing various odd jobs, and after giving up following education
from the School of Fine Arts, he graduated as a physiotherapist.
Although he had been sculpting since childhood, it was only at the age of fifty that he did
sculpture his profession in its own right. The physiotherapy he has exercised so far is probably not
foreign to the magnificent sense of anatomy found in his work. During all these
years of activity, he transforms his medical practice and his successive apartments at night into
sculpture workshops, destroying or leaving behind the works he creates.
What amazed me in this exhibition was the size of the sculptures which are sometimes very large. In this photo we see a representation of a family of three accompanied by their dog
This statue I call the old sage unlike many other work that only shows the hands and a tiny part of the face. A couple visiting us serves as a model to visualize the size of the creation
These photos are already almost 9 years old, forgive me for the backlight, at the time I discovered the joys of photography
A closer photo allows you to see a little more detail. The curious side of Ousmane Sow's works is the raw material he uses to make his creations
The master of time this character quietly watches that time passes.
This woman does not know how to approach this man who is visibly in pain. Is he mad? Does he suffer from a painful illness?
The hairdresser who works to prepare her client for a crucial moment in her life
Lots of works are exhibited and unfortunately I also lost some photo which was not very well taken. Like the man with his little ox
This work I call the naked walker. Admit that this is not my favorite
The hunter in a rather curious position between a slip on a patch of ice or an attempt to recover by taking support on a stone. I really like this sculpture that you will find in another angle on the following image
The man and his ox the only one that I was not born to keep. Before when I took my photos I destroyed all the images that had a slight defect but today I take my photos differently. I first take the image that interests me and after all there is around to find the context of the shooting
Look at the font to the left of this photo to see a woman next to two scutures her shows us the immensity of the works
The woman and her child. Ousmane Sow wishes to show the seines of everyday life and does not skimp on the means if you have the opportunity to go see his work go there.
Thank you for following this post and I wish you a happy end of year
All original photos @Cyboule.
