Janus, 2011

Seyni Awa Camara   Master Artists

Born in 1939, Seyni CAMARA is an African artist whose works travel the world. Senegalese, originally from Casamance, she lives in a small village lost in the heart of the forest. It is in Bignona that Seyni works in her house with a tin roof. She is the living legend of her village. Far from the turpitudes of the community, she lives with her family, working unceasingly since the time when she and her two brothers were introduced to their art by the geniuses of the forest. His life and his work are imbued with a mysticism inherent in the malicious spirits and the animist practices which characterize the Africa of villages. Indeed, in adolescence, they were all three abducted by the spirits of the forest. During this learning of the mysteries of clay, the whole village decided to sacrifice some animals to appease the spirits, so that Seyni and her twin brothers finally return. And this was the case, according to legend ... Since then, Seyni has not stopped modeling thousands of characters, men, women, animals of all kinds, giving free rein to his imagination, putting into volumes a cosmogony of his own. The works of the little potter of Bignona have made their way. Exhibited in many Western modern art museums, presented at the Pompidou Center in 1989, at the Venice Biennale in 2001, the notoriety of Seyni CAMARA's work has transcended borders. The reason for this transnational fascination with his art can be explained by that small part of the mind that is common to all men: the sincerity of emotions.