AMY CÉLESTINA NDIONE

2018 SENEGAL ARTIST IN RESIDENCY

ARTIST IN RESIDENCY /
OCTOBER 8 TO DECEMBER 1ST, 2018

ARTIST TALK /
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 5H30PM
(5445 DE GASPÉ, #609)

CLARK is proud to be the host residency partner for Senegalese artist Amy Célestina Ndione. This partnership stems from a residency exchange agreement between the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec (CALQ) and the Ministère de la Culture du Sénégal with the support of the ministère de la Culture et des Communications du Québec and the ministère des Relations internationales et de la Francophonie – Bureau du Québec à Dakar.

 

Amy Célestina Ndione was born in 1988 in Ziguinchor, Senegal. She studied at the École Nationale des Arts de Dakar (ENA), obtaining a diploma in graphic arts in 2015.

Ndione’s work finds its inspiration in everyday life, through observation and analysis of the world as she encounters it. The artist sets her sights on society and her experience of daily life to create an imaginary world based on her observations of the real one.

For her residency at CLARK, Ndione is producing a body of works drawing on her interest in public transportation. As a bus commuter in Senegal, she developed a visual language based on passengers’ behaviour and words. Based on her “field observations”, the artist began to compare the comportment of passengers to that of sheep, squeezed together, hanging from the bars “like prisoners in a hot, narrow rectangular box”. Using painting, collage (with found objects), and sewing, Ndione seeks to recreate and share her observations and experience of this sense of confinement. Her considerations are informed by a desire to reveal the different experiences of the middle class and the wealthy, with the intent of sharing her observations with those who regularly endure these situations, as well as those who are responsible for them.

“I have a mental image that stays with me. A dark night-time view of a rectangular, illuminated box with shadowy figures within. With haggard faces and blank stares, they huddle together inertly, like a large cut stone. In parallel, a large cube, dimly lit but luxurious, with a solitary, docile man wearing a business suit and a dejected look on his face.”