Moctarmast

A graduate of the Beaux-Arts in Dakar and then a plastic arts teacher from 2007 to 2014, Masta has been painting since he was a teenager, and has held many group and solo exhibitions in Senegal and France.

He began exhibiting his work in high school, taking part in cultural and artistic events in the city where he grew up: Saint-Louis, Senegal.

Saint-Louis, a three-hundred-year-old city, a city of museums and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is also famous for its international jazz festival. Old postcards of the city are the source of inspiration for this monochrome series, set against a background of free drawing that offers poetic expression and shows younger people what the city of their forebears looked like. The same series depicts the old streets of Paris and Le Mans in the guise of a proud lady, whose dress is constantly swirling in sepia tones, still singing of the splendour of a bygone beauty.

For an artist, Saint-Louis has more than just its old colonial architecture to offer, for the inspiring old city has mythological beliefs that cradled Masta's childhood. Brought up by his grandmother, the artist also uses his paintings to recount tales told by characters and figures who populate the invisible world that still haunts his imagination. The series of paintings, with titles such as "Talisman", "Sacred Wood" and "Magic Square", underline the mystical dimension of the artist's creative universe, which is also illustrated in the other series entitled "Mystic city of Kumba Bang".