WEST AFRICA FOCUS

This year, Kunstasyl is placing a special focus on art from West Africa. Alongside Austrian positions, we want to create space for artists from the region and make their work accessible to a wider audience.

At the same time, we are working to establish our new location in Senegal. With this year’s focus, we aim to raise the funds needed to make this possible and support our long-term work on the ground.

We’re happy to share the work of some of the artists featured in our West Africa focus with you here.

Modou Anta Diongue (Mad in Pixel) is a Senegalese multidisciplinary artist, filmmaker, illustrator and graphic designer from Dakar. Influenced by cinema, literature, pop culture and African imaginaries, his work bridges visual arts and digital media.

After working as an art director and illustrator, he founded his own production studio in 2019. In 2024, he presented Time and Movement at The Wake, part of the Dakar Biennale of Contemporary African Art, exploring the relationship between time, movement and personal experience through film, photography and interactive elements.

MAKAMSSA is a Burkinabè visual artist whose work explores the experiences, struggles and hopes of women, children and vulnerable communities. She began studying drawing at the National Centre for Arts and Crafts (CNAA) in 2009 and trained in painting under the late artist Lassina Comsiembo from 2010.

In 2018, she was selected for MOUSSOYA, a group exhibition organised by the Goethe-Institut in Burkina Faso. In 2021, she held her first solo exhibition, KouléKan (The Cries), in Ouagadougou.

Her expressive, poetic paintings combine acrylics, natural pigments and everyday reclaimed materials. Through her work, MAKAMSSA gives voice to pain, resilience and hope, inviting viewers to reflect on shared human experiences.

Alexis Mendy, known as L’Impressionniste, is a Senegalese visual artist of Guinean origin, born in Ziguinchor in southern Senegal in 1990. Trained at the National School of Arts and Cultural Crafts in Dakar, he has developed an abstract visual language rooted in symbols and cultural heritage.

His vibrant, introspective work explores childhood, family, tradition, memory and the relationship between people and their environment. Inspired by music, boxing and colour, Alexis describes himself as a seeker of signs, building bridges between symbolic pasts and present-day experiences.

Dioman is a self-taught Senegalese visual artist who grew up in Dakar’s Dieuppeul neighbourhood. Inspired by the city’s vibrant colours, everyday life and cultural landscape, his work draws on everything from cars rapides and fishing boats to traditional fabrics and wax prints.

Originally a law student, he turned to art as a way to transform life experiences into positive energy. A recurring light bulb in his paintings symbolises light, ideas, optimism and the belief that anything is possible.

Since 2018, Dioman has exhibited widely in Senegal and internationally, including in Mali and Amsterdam. He also engages in social initiatives, using art to raise awareness about breast cancer and cybercrime among young people. His works have reached collectors across Europe, the Americas and Asia.

Alhassane Konté (Lass) is a Malian painter and sculptor born in 1993 in Kodié, in the Kayes region. His work explores the connections between childhood, memory and nature, drawing on personal experiences and his close relationship with the natural world. Combining painting, sculpture and digital media, Lass creates poetic works that move between abstraction and figuration. He incorporates recycled wood shavings and sawdust, giving discarded materials new life. Since 2018, he has exhibited widely across Africa and internationally, exploring childhood as a source of hope and a vision of harmony between humanity and nature.

Serigne Ndiaye was born in 1953 in Tivaouane, Senegal. He is a painter and collector specialising in reverse glass painting. A graduate of the École des Beaux-Arts in Dakar, he is recognised as the first Senegalese artist trained there to adopt glass as a medium for his work.

A painter, educator and theorist of the technique, he has participated in numerous exhibitions in Senegal and abroad. He also curated the glass painting salon at Dak’Art 1996 and regularly leads workshops to promote this distinctive art form.