Gallery Baronian is pleased to announce Villes Cartonnées, Ndoye Douts’ first solo exhibition at the gallery. His work covers a personal narrative – inspired by the neighborhood he grew up in, the Medina in Dakar, a veritable maze of disorderly streets where the houses seem entangled and all types of vehicles circulate. 

“Out of the fire … came out slums. Chicago, Paris, La Havana, Dakar. … All around the world slums are bursting with vitality. Seen from a foreigner’s eye, this is chaos in colors – but from an autochthon’s eye, this is the energy of living together. 

What if their perspectives merged ? What if chaos provided energy ? What if slums and towns were linked by crossovers ? What if, at last, spirits from here and there could understand each other and meet on a common ground? 

The whole answer lies in Ndoye Douts’ posture. The plastic artist has lived in slums which provided him the raw material to compose his ‘living together’ fresco. Colors which ‘feed the eyes’ were used to make his work roar at us : ‘Come in and look behind bias !’. Flouting particular ‘architectural trends’, Douts’ work is meant as a bloc – a bloc offering ‘hope for life’ without borders. 

By abolishing the fragility of the matter, by protecting ‘walls from heat, cold and rain’, Douts’ eye and painting also strengthens the tenuous threads which bind us together. Under his colourful corrugated rooftops the living together has beautiful days ahead. No doubt about it.”

Text by Jérémie Vaudaux

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