Ismaila Manga, (b. Senegal, 1957) Pencil and Mixed Media on Canvas Signed "Ismaila Manga” on Verso

Ismaila Manga, (b. Senegal, 1957) Pencil and Mixed Media on Canvas Signed "Ismaila Manga” on Verso 142 x 245cm (55.9 x 96.5in)

Framed and Glazed

Born August 1957, in Kamoya, Senegal, Ismaila Manga is one of Senegal`s most interesting artists. He graduated from Senegal`s Ecole Nationale des Beaux Arts in 1982 and later spent thirteen years in Montreal where he attended L`Ecole International du Design de Montréal before returning to Africa to rediscover his own continent. This urge to re-immerse himself in African culture led him to take extensive exploratory journeys in to neighbouring Mali to study the culture of the Dogon and other aspects of Malian culture.

"Every image defies death, containing the memory of something that no longer exists, starting with the ancestors. On the other hand any denial of death weakens the vitality of our mental life. Myths, signs and symbols allow me to establish what seems to me to be the essence of our humanity: the temporal.”

Manga`s fascination with the passage of time and the temporal has lead him to develop a practice that involves leaving canvas outside his studio in Dakar, exposed to the elements, draped over iron objects chosen for their shapes. In the process the rust from the iron creates oxidized patterns on the canvas. Once this process is complete he primes the canvas and then begins to draw on it in pencil using photographs of people that he shoots from his apartment in Dakar - making composite scenes of transient Dakar life on a backdrop that symbolises the temporary nature of life.

"I use the passing of days and nights to mark on canvas the imprint of time, letting the latter do its own work, materializing in rust obtained by the oxidation of metals. The photos I use in my work are just memories which I project on to the canvas, marked by time and drawn with a lead pencil, the simplest of materials that an artist can use.”

His work features in collections both public and private, in Senegal, Europe, the United States, Canada and South America. In Dak`Art 2012 he exhibited a 30m circular installation of Dakar life. Click here to view Catalogue