Alioune Diagne

Alioune Diagne
File:@Carmen Abd Ali.jpg@Carmen Abd Ali.jpg @Carmen Abd Ali.jpg
Born	(1985-08-28) August 28, 1985 Kaffrine, Senegal
🏳️ Citizenship	Senegalese, French
🏫 Education	École nationale des arts du Sénégal - Beaux- Arts de Dakar
💼 Occupation
Movement	Figuro-abstro
🏅 Awards	The Norval Sovereign African Art Public Prize (2023)
🌐 Website	https://www.aliounediagne.com/

Alioune Diagne, born on August 28, 1985, in Kaffrine (Senegal), is a Franco-Senegalese contemporary artist and the creator of the Figuro-Abstro movement. Drawing inspiration from everyday life and Senegalese traditions, as well as from the lived experiences of the African diaspora around the world, he translates these scenes through a unique style that oscillates between abstraction and figuration, influenced by calligraphy. A committed artist, he also addresses key contemporary issues, such as the exploitation of Africa’s resources and the dangers associated with irregular migration. In 2024, he became the first artist to represent Senegal at the 60th Venice Biennale.

Youth

From an early age, Alioune Diagne showed a passion for drawing, without ever imagining it could become a profession. At the time, drawing was his way of expressing himself. Although he had no real access to art history or contemporary art for many years, his work is deeply marked by his own cultural heritage and Senegalese traditions.

Noticed for his drawing skills in primary school, he would regularly illustrate history and geography lessons on the blackboard to help his classmates, due to the lack of textbooks.

His artistic talent continued to grow through spontaneous drawings on his friends’ football jerseys depicting symbols and religious figures considered lucky charms in Senegal.

Following the death of his father, Alioune Diagne joined his mother in Dakar, where he was admitted to the École Nationale des Arts, the Dakar School of Fine Arts, despite his family’s initial reluctance.

Artistic Career

Alioune Diagne’s artistic journey began at the Dakar School of Fine Arts, where he was introduced to various techniques and discovered art history.

In 2010, he moved to France and settled with his family in Vienne, in the Isère region. In this adopted city, he became actively involved in local associations, leading workshops and carrying out artistic projects with children.

It was also in Vienne, in 2013, that he developed his own artistic language, “Figuro-Abstro,” a style in which figurative scenes are composed from a multitude of abstract elements, small signs traced almost instinctively. He went on to create several “collections” of works, such as Scènes de marchés sénégalais and Modou Modou—the latter evoking the lives of Senegalese migrant workers. He prefers the term “collection” to “series,” which he finds too limiting, as it allows him to explore his favored themes freely, according to his current inspirations.

Gradually, his work began to be exhibited internationally, earning increasing recognition through shows in cities such as Shanghai and Aosta, Italy.

In 2019, he presented a major exhibition in Paris titled Perceptions, which brought together several of his most emblematic collections.

The year 2022 marked a turning point in his career: he was among the selected artists featured at the Dak’Art Biennale of Contemporary African Art, exhibited at the former Dakar Courthouse. At the same time, he held a solo show titled Ëttu Kër – Inner Courtyard at the Grand Théâtre National de Dakar—a project inspired by colonial postcards, which the artist reinterpreted to shed light on Senegal’s ancestral customs, often overlooked due to a largely oral tradition of transmission.

That same year, the Museum of Black Civilizations in Dakar acquired one of his works, and he began a collaboration with Galerie Templon, which now represents him.

File:Exposition "Ndox-Glint » en dialogue avec l’impressionnisme, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Rouen, France.jpg

Exposition "Bokk – Bounds", Pavillon du Sénégal, 60ème Biennale de Venise, Venise, Italie

Between 2023 and 2024, the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Rouen dedicated a solo exhibition to his work, titled Ndox – Glint, centered around the theme of the river. For this project, the artist undertook a journey to explore the towns and villages along the Senegal River.

The exhibition established a dialogue between his painting and that of the great Impressionist masters such as Claude Monet, Eugène Boudin, and Robert Pinchon.

At this point in his life, he decided to return to live in Senegal and to establish his studio there.

File:Exposition "Bokk – Bounds", Pavillon du Sénégal, 60ème Biennale de Venise, Venise, Italie.jpg

Solo show "Bokk – Bounds", Senegalese Pavilion, 60e Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy

In April 2024, he had the honor of representing Senegal’s first national pavilion at the 60th Venice Biennale.The project, titled Bokk – Bounds, conceived by the artist in collaboration with curator Massamba Mbaye, was a response to the Biennale’s theme Stranieri Ovunque – Foreigners Everywhere.

In Wolof, Bokk means both “what is shared,” “what unites us,” and “family ties.” Through sixteen paintings forming a monumental four-by-twelve-meter ensemble, resembling a vast puzzle, the artist calls for unity and the nurturing of human connections through shared challenges and universal values.

An immersive installation completed the pictorial project: an eight-meter-long traditional pirogue, broken in two and wrapped in Senegalese textile hand-painted by the artist, symbolized the severed ties between individuals and evoked the great migratory waves of humanity.

In parallel, he has exhibited with Galerie Templon in Paris, New York, and Brussels. In 2024, he presented Seede (“testimony” in Wolof) in Paris—an exhibition that denounces the human tragedies linked to irregular migration across the Mediterranean, a deeply personal and recurring theme in his work. True to his humanist nature, he frequently depicts scenes of sea rescues.

Several major museums and prestigious collections, including the Denver Art Museum in the United States, have acquired his works.

Figuro-abstro movement

The year 2013 marked a turning point in the artist’s life with the death of his grandfather, from whom he takes his name. This grandfather, a Quranic teacher, had dedicated his life to writing, a tradition that Alioune instinctively took up after his passing.

Unaware of it at the time, the artist began in 2013 to create portraits and scenes composed of small signs reminiscent of calligraphy. For him, these marks emerge unconsciously and form a universal language—one that expresses the inexpressible: emotions, memories, fragments of the past.

This language compels the viewer to move around the work, to squint, to gradually uncover its subject and meaning. While some of his pieces are highly detailed and figurative, another part of his practice is shaped by a tension between abstraction and figuration, inviting the viewer to take time to decipher the represented scenes.

Though some curators and art critics perceive echoes of Pointillism and Impressionism in his style, it is above all a profound expression of a familial and cultural heritage, reappropriated by the artist himself. Alioune Diagne, who only discovered these Western art movements after developing his own technique, has since become increasingly interested in them. His current sources of inspiration also include Cubism and Picasso’s works referencing African masks, which he encountered during museum visits in Europe and the United States.

Today, other artists have begun to follow the Figuro-Abstro movement.

Themes and commitment

A deeply committed artist, Alioune Diagne addresses major contemporary issues such as ecology, the role of women in society, racism, and the notions of transmission and heritage.

Environmental concerns, particularly the pollution of seas and oceans, recur throughout his work, as does his denunciation of the plundering of African marine resources by foreign powers, which has led to fish shortages for local populations.

Several of his paintings also highlight struggles against racial discrimination.

Exile and the everyday lives of African diasporas around the world occupy a central place in his work. In 2023, as part of his thematic exhibition on the river at the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Rouen, he undertook a journey along the Senegal River, where he had a deeply moving encounter with former fishermen who had become migrant smugglers.

Profoundly affected by the human tragedies caused by the shipwrecks that have claimed many lives in Senegal in recent years, he has long explored the theme of irregular migration across the Mediterranean. Through his paintings, he seeks to raise awareness among Senegalese and African youth about the dangers of these crossings and the hardships that await migrants once they arrive in Europe.

He also regularly portrays the daily lives of the modou-modou—Senegalese workers living abroad. Often based in major cities like Paris or New York, and frequently rendered invisible, they strive to support their families from afar.

Through his work, Diagne restores their dignity and gives visibility to their journeys, blending European urban landscapes with visual elements referencing their homeland.

His work is also a celebration of everyday life in Senegal: the vibrant atmosphere of its markets, the strength of Senegalese women, powerful and resilient figures who manage both daily responsibilities and entire households, and the spontaneous, radiant joy of senegalese youth.

Through his art, he pays tribute to the richness of Senegalese traditions while seeking to preserve the memory of a country in transformation, of customs at risk of being lost, which he wishes to immortalize. Through his unique and fragmented style, he creates a living archive of his homeland.

Exhibitions

Solo Shows

• 2025 : « Jokkoo », Galerie Templon, New York (USA)
• 2024 : “Bokk - Bounds”, Senegalese Pavilion, Biennale di Venezia, Arsenale, Venice (Italy)
• 2024 : “Seede” (Witness), Galerie Templon, Paris (France)
• 2023 : “Ndox-Glint”, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rouen, Rouen (France)
• 2023 : “Tukki”, Galerie Templon, Brussels (Belgium)
• 2022 : “Ëttu Kër - Cour intérieure”, Grand Théâtre National de Dakar – Special Pavilion at the Dakar Biennale (Senegal)
• 2020 : “WONEMA – Let me see”, Dakar (Senegal)
• 2019 : “PERCEPTIONS”, We Art Partners, Paris (France)
• 2017 : “Un nouveau regard”, Finaosta Exhibition Hall, Aosta (Italy)
• 2017 : Solo exhibition during ArtBasel, Basel (Switzerland)

Group Shows

• 2024 : Senegal Pavilion, Dakar Biennale, Musée des Civilisations Noires, Dakar (Senegal)
• 2023 : Africa Supernova, Kunsthal KAdE, Amersfoort (Netherlands)
• 2023 : Norval Sovereign Art Prize 2023, Norval Foundation, Cape Town (South Africa)
• 2022 : Official selection of the Dakar Biennale, Palais de Justice, Dakar (Senegal)
• 2019 : Hommage à Fatma Charfi, Galerie Nationale, Dakar (Senegal)
• 2016 : Galerie Pélussin (France)
• 2016 : Galerie Artbank, Shanghai (China)
• 2016 : Galerie Arte, Dakar (Senegal)
• 2016 : Biennale Off Dak’Art 2016, Loman (Senegal)
• 2015 : Salon African Art Fair, Paris (France)
• 2014 :11e Biennale de Dakar, Saint-Louis (Senegal)
• 2014 : Sink or Swim, 11e Biennale de Dakar, Villa Spivey, Dakar (Senegal)
• 2014 : Figuro Abstro, Galerie Rêves d’Afrique, Saint-Étienne (France)

• 2014 : Itinéraire en Couleurs, Espace Jean Drevon (France)
• 2013 : 10e édition, hall de l’hôpital Lucien Hussel, Vienne (France)
• 2013 : Collabor’Action, Galerie Loman Art, Dakar (Sénégal)

Collections

• Domaine Privé de l'Etat du Sénégal, Museum of Black Civilizations
• Denver Art Museum
• Saudi Arabia Museum of Contemporary Art
• Schulting Collection

Publications

• Dagen, Philippe ; Mbaye, Massamba. Bokk-Bounds, BiennalediVenezia. Les presses du réel : Paris, 2024
• Calame-Levert, Florence ; Chaizemartin, Julie. Alioune Diagne Ndox-Glint - Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rouen. Galerie Templon : Paris, 2022
• Ëttu Kër – Cour intérieure - Grand Théâtre National de Dakar. We Art Partners : Paris, 2022.
• Alioune Diagne, PERCEPTIONS. Éditions Internationales du Patrimoine : Paris, 2019
• Galerie Nationale ; Ndiaye Abdou Diouf. Hommage à Fatma Charfi par les artistes sénégalais.Fatma Charfi Association : Dakar, 2019.

References

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