Color is life, explains his powerful voice Samba Diallo in the middle of the twenty paintings of the exhibition « African sun Held in December 2017 in D akar. The basketball physics of the self-taught artist claimed and assumed is proportional to the size of his canvases.
Coming to the world 2 years before the years 68, period of protest of the youth in Senegal and in France, two countries in which the artist has a part of his family, Samba Diallo received the gift of drawing. The native of La Medina, not far from the administrative quarter of Dakar, Senegal, tells that he has always drawn, only the supports of his paintings havechanged.
Samba Diallo has remained constant in his love of art despite the lack of optimism from a part of his family. Today, the artist who savored his journey so far, has been helping young artists for 10 years and wishes to transmit an artistic legacy to his youngest son with whom Samba shares the love of brushes and basketball.
Childhood as an illustrator and a basketball player, wonder in St. Louis
During his childhood, longtime before selling his paintings in France and Senegal, Samba Diallo was a volunteer designer. Students came from all corners of his native Medina and neighborhood Liberty 6 where he grew up, to entrust him to decorating their notebooks. The latter being required to applicants to the entrance examination in 6 th and Certificate of Elementary Studies Completion.
This fervent disciple of the influential Mouride Brotherhood did not learn to paint with a master painter. ” In my family, it is said that an uncle I did not know was a painter ” confess Samba who learned by observing other paintings and was especially inspired by the most beautiful work : the divine creation. ” Colors are life, I love colors as I love the sun, a visual and spiritual symbol “
Samba Diallo remembers his first paintings, actually his first drawings on plywood ! ” I was convinced to make masterpieces, but it was work done with more passion than technique “states Samba without any doubt, the look appeased, sheltered behind his vision glasses.
Slavery was one of the themes of the two artworks that Samba transported 26 kilometers between Dakar and Saint Louis of Senegal to present to Jacob Yacouba. It was in 1985. ” When I entered the studio, I was more than ever confident in my desire to be a painter ! It was a magnificent room , vast and impressive ! There was a large table of 2m, hectoliters of real painting and especially beautiful paintings “
Jacob Yacouba took the time to observe the plywood drawings of the young Samba Diallo, gave the young man several technical advices and concluded with an injunction that the artist still applies : work more !
In addition to drawing, Samba Diallo loves basketball, he plays with SICAP Liberté . He continues his career playing with the college Jeanne d’Arc team, a private high-school that he joined after his failure in the CFEE in public education. The young man will follow this sport- studies course , playing in junior, cadets, seniors, learning architecture drawing by the way, and often leaving his markers to draw his friends and classmates .
30 years to find his artistic style
Portraits, abstract, mid-figure, mid-abstract, painting coffee and many other artistic styles, Samba Diallo tried everything in his youth. ” When I liked a work, mentally I was convinced I could do better, I tried and I think I often managed to understand the technique, even if I destroyed some paintings, supports and wasted a lot of time and paint during my self-training. “
Both literally and figuratively, art takes more and more space in Samba Diallo’s life. Canvases accumulate in the family home where priority is given to the study of science. His siblings, 2 brothers and 5 sisters, do not approve his artistic orientation and they hope that Samba goes on to something else while growing up.
This hope is broken when the young schoolboy stops studying to devote himself to painting. Decision announced shortly before his first collective exhibition in 1987 at the Blaise Senghor Cultural Center.
This first real jump in the professional artistic community leaves Samba with a mixed feeling : ” several visitors to the exhibition appreciated my work, but I did not sell any paintings “
Two years later Samba Diallo’s works have been selected by Unicef, meanwhile, when his older sister leaves the family home to get married, she takes two canvases.
