AMADOU BÂ

Amadou Yéro Bâ was born in 1944 in Agniam Thiodaye, in the Matam region of northern Senegal.

He was trained by Pierre Lods at his Ateliers Libres. Bâ was one of his first students.

His painting, fully nourished by Fulani tradition, and which could be described as "classical" in terms of the subjects treated - lyre-shaped oxen, shepherds, flat-bottomed boats on a river, dancers - bears witness to a nomadic Africa. He evokes scenes of daily life without giving in to the convenience of picturesqueness and local color. His thematic choices can be explained by the fact that he belongs to the Peuls, herders who adopted a more or less sedentary lifestyle when they settled in West Africa. Their quiet, reserved character is reflected in Amadou Bâ's discreet, secretive painting. The artist highlights the rural world with soft colors and a style guided by great aesthetic research.

His traditional culture is combined with the modernity of his inspirers, Pablo Picasso, Paul Klee and Oscar Dominguez, whose light geometries and ironic disproportions he has subtilled. His paintings reveal the world he knows: first and foremost, it's the images of a childhood marked by constant travel that follow him. There's an image there that won't come out," he says. It nourished my childhood, forged my eye and guided my sensitivity. I can see it at night, but I can't fully realize it.  Then there are the fragile, elegant silhouettes of shepherds, hieratic under the blazing sun.