CHEIKH TIDIANE KEITA
Cheikh Tidiane Keïta is a born artist. He is a painter and a musician. He has a great passion for art, something that has led him through several courses to master the tools and techniques of painting. “As a child, I loved drawing and I did it everywhere. In elementary school, the school teacher called on me regularly to sketch on the board. And through high school, my classmates always asked me to draw on their notebooks”.
Cheikh belongs to the young generation of Senegalese artists. He is one of the torch bearers of the weighty and noble heritage left by the generation of the great Senegalese percussionist, Djibril Ndiaye, and jealously maintained by the generations of Douts. His work was revealed to audiences worldwide in 2005-2006, during a competition for a [European] Union Award, which he won.
Cheikh likes solitude to work. In this atmosphere of aloneness, his paintings, hued in ocher yellow and red contrasted with white and black, highlight the light, the shadows and the shapes of his fi gures. Colors resulting from a mixture of tar and paint unique to the artist, are also used to cover the various materials glued to the canvas (sawdust, tissue fragments of dried paint), giving his work a breath of life. A perfectionist, he does not hesitate to make cocktails like this and rework his paintings because he wants his style to be original and unique. He also insists that his work is of high quality. Moreover, if the painter likes to work in the same color ranges, probably because of his reserved personality, it is not the same with regard to the content of his paintings. Cheikh’s work considers different aspects of daily life in his native Senegal. The paintings express the lives of his young characters. They show individuals sitting on ordinary objects, their spine bent, giving off vibes of young men racked by thoughts of escape or migration. The choice of colors, sometimes gentle, at times aggressive, reflects the mood of the moment and the state of torment in which the canvas has enveloped him.
Cheikh is deeply rooted in African culture, from whence he draws his inspiration, resulting in the originality of his work.
Cheikh is also part of a young and talented band, Takeita, all family members, where he is the lead guitarist.