Matter becomes existence: it carries its past, transforms itself into future, and manifests its present.
Soly Cissé (b. 1969, Dakar, Senegal) is a painter, draughtsman and sculptor of tenacious determination, who overcame the initial resistance of his father, a military doctor, to pursue an artistic career. After taking part in a photography workshop at the Centre Culturel Français of Dakar in 1995, he graduated from the École Nationale des Beaux-Arts of Dakar in 1996 and imposed himself within a few years as one of the most vital voices of his generation.
Cissé expresses himself through painting, sculpture, photography and installation. His pictorial worlds are inhabited by hybrid shapes in which animal and human merge: creatures of a personal bestiary through which he stages the duality between tradition and modernity, the spiritual inheritance of Africa and the excitement of the contemporary metropolis, with a gestural intensity that acknowledges the influence of Francis Bacon and Jean-Michel Basquiat. Series such as "Monde perdu" (2005), "Sinistrés" (2005), charcoal drawings devoted to the Senegalese population during the floods of that year, and "La Sortie des masques" (2008) mark the milestones of a practice in which matter itself becomes existence, carrying its past and transforming itself into future.
Cissé represented Senegal at the Jeux de la Francophonie in 2001 and was selected for the Dakar Biennale in 2000, 2002 and 2006. He took part in "Africa Remix", the landmark survey of contemporary African art presented at the Museum Kunst Palast, Düsseldorf, the Hayward Gallery, London, the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, and the Mori Art Museum, Tokyo (2004-2006), and in "Lumières d'Afriques" at the Palais de Chaillot, Paris (2015). Solo exhibitions include "Le Monde perdu" at the Centro per l'Arte Contemporanea Luigi Pecci, Prato (2005), the Musée des Arts Derniers, Paris (2006, 2007, 2009), and the IFAN Museum, Dakar (2008).
His relationship with Italy has been shaped by a long curatorial dialogue with Antonella Pisilli, spanning the solo exhibitions "Bestiario" (2012), the "Ex Africa Semper Aliquid Novi" focus (2016-2017), accompanied by an unpublished interview with the artist, and "Physiologus" (2018-2019) at Kyo Noir Studio, Viterbo, and continuing at Black Liquid Art Gallery, Rome, with the group exhibition "Africam EXPLORO" (2023) and the two-person exhibition "Soly Cissé and Seyni Awa Camara" (2024-2025), which paired him with the great Senegalese sculptor later celebrated at the 61st Venice Biennale. He lives and works in Dakar.
2005, "Le Monde perdu", Centro per l'Arte Contemporanea Luigi Pecci, Prato