Senegalese visual artist Ndoye Douts is dead

There was seriousness behind the apparent naivete and the childish trait cultivated by Ndoye Douts, a Senegalese plastic surgeon who died at the age of 50, in the prime of life. Got out major of his promotion in 1999 of the National School of Fine Arts of Senegal, he was already, at his beginnings, fascinated by the “architectural disorder” of his city, Dakar. His installations have often been part of the official program of the Dakar Biennale (Dak’Art), with series of drawings reflecting his city – and by extension, the intensely urban character of the continent.

Recently returned from Japan, where he had exhibited for a month, he said he was tired, testifies his friend Olivier Sultanpatron of the Art-Z Gallery, who has hung his works many times in Paris: “Douts’ works perfectly reflected Dakar, whether in his paintings, drawings or animated films: he showed the permanent bubbling and energy of his city, the presence of the crowd, with a very particular way at the plastic level to put everything on the same plane: the sea, the canoes, the cars, the buildings and the people – a real urban kaleidoscope”.

A generous personality

Originally from a powerful fishing ethnic group in Dakar, the artist wrote this word, “lébou”, on his canvases, marked by the omnipresence of fish and boats.. “The scarcity of fish explained the phenomenon of departures of migrants in canoes, a trip from which many never returned, continues Olivier Sultan. He touched on deep topics, even though he was always cheerful and cheerful. He also had a rare generosity in his contacts: he wore the clothes of his friend Cheikha Sigil, whose workshop he had made his headquarters in Dakar, to make him better known. And he didn’t hesitate to take you to see other creators…”.

The Senegalese photographer Mabeye Deme, a big fan of the work of Ndoye Douts, evokes a shock when he saw him for the first time, years ago, at the Blachère Foundation. ” Suddenly, there was a line on the canvas, and then Dakar drawn underneath, with large taxis, small lampposts, tiny characters. A real reading of Dakar: he pointed out the dysfunctions with traffic and pollution, but also the running order, life”.

The bubbling Dakar of Ndoye Douts

The photographer can no longer see the traffic jams in Colobane without the canvases of Douts surfacing in his mind, whose creative force he compares to that of Djibril Diop Mambéty, a filmmaker who died in 1998. The places of Dakar filmed by Djibril Diop Mambéty also have this effect on me, I see them through his eyes. “. He too mentions the generosity of Douts, “ who was from all the families of artists, we saw him at the photographer’s Antoine Tempe, in the Medina, in the city center, while in Dakar, relations can be fractured “.

French director Christian Lajoumard, author in 2020 of a 15-minute documentary on Ndoye Douts, evokes one of the ” nicest and friendliest artists with whom he was given to shoot. ” He liked stylists, changed clothes all the time, it looked like a bouquet of flowers all the time. He was very attached to his neighborhood, La Gueule Tapée, and we often went to Soumbedioune to see the sea, a place where he drew many buildings in very colorful, touching canvases”. Ndoye Douts is “gone”, as they say at home. His works remain, witnesses of this incompressible freedom of gaze that makes the mark of Dakar.

>> To read also: The painter Ndoye Douts takes the pulse of the neighborhoods of Dakar