Senegalese artist creates coronavirus era paintings

Renowned Senegalese artist Soly Cisse is working on a new series called 'Corona' and he says the COVID-19 pandemic has not only changed how we all live, but also the way he paints his interpretation of the world.

Colette Luke has more.

Renowned Senegalese artist Soly Cisse once painted figures very close to each other, illustrating the constant social interaction in communities and families living in close proximity in his country.

But now, Cisse says, the COVID-19 pandemic has not only changed how we all live, but also the way he paints his interpretation of the world.

"I've noticed for a while that my characters are separated and it changes the way my work is read because I usually accumulate my characters, they overlap, there's a social aspect, characters touching was important to show that there was a link between us, but now we have no choice, it's as if this gap was forced on us, the distancing was imposed and we have to live with it." Cisse, who is working on a new series called 'Corona'”, describes the novel coronavirus as an indomitable adversary that people fear and is re-defining the way individuals perceive themselves and each other.

This year’s bi-annual event in the Senegalese capital showcasing the best of African art got cancelled.

Cisse hopes the organizers will wait until 2022 for the next meeting to give people time to heal the wound of COVID-19.

"So corona is a period, but a period that will mark us for life, so these paintings for me are paintings that stand as witnesses to an extremely difficult, a hard period, that we won't be forgetting any time soon.

So for me these are works that will remain in museums."