Discovering the work of KHALY N’Diaye means firstly meeting an obsessed artist whose light shines from within and whose generosity is instantly felt.
He began as a musician and comes from a family of artists. He started by creating Batik work on canvas then sought the solitude of his studio at Rufisque near Dakar in order to cultivate his pictorial technique.
As an autodidact – like many Senegalese painters – he refuses any kind of academicism in order to allow him to discover complete liberty through his search for singular, original work.
KHALY N’Diaye’s work, which is close to surrealism, is often abstract; it carries the symbolism of the sign.
It is soaked in the traditions of primary art as seen in the KANAGA mask of which he gives us a new and different version each time, Each more luminous and colourful than the previous.
As a magician of the material he uses, he alternates or associates oil or acrylic with a chrome-like virtuosity which is always joyous and harmonious.
KHALY N’Diaye consequently offers us a wealthy and immediate range of work which reveals more and more talent as time goes by.