First published: Spring 2023
The work of African artist Alaye Kene Atô is haunted by spirits, but no longer by his past
Alaye Kene Atô was born “Alaye Antemelou Kene Teme”, in around 1967, in the village of Yendouma Atô, Dogon country, Mali, West Africa. Originally a peasant farmer, he became an artist after having a life-changing accident. He makes strange, vividly coloured drawings, richly inventive, populated with phantasmagoria, and eminently personal. In the attic of his imagination, Atô accumulates spirits – demons and genies – which he then deposits in felt-tip pen onto sheets of paper. His art translates his inner, tormented world, and his dreamlike, disturbing visions of the supernatural. He signs the work “Alaye Kene Atô”, in reference to the name of his village.
Untitled, c. 2019, felt-tip pen on paper, 11.5 x 8 in. / 29 x 21 cm; courtesy: Paul Cordina
Atô was a young farmer when, in 1987, his homemade powder rifle exploded during a funeral ceremony, destroying his left hand and leaving him mutilated And unable to handle the tools of his farm work. Many of the Dogon – the ethnic group indigenous to central Mali – practise the religion of Animism and believe in a synergy between the spiritual world and the living, natural world.
Untitled, c. 2019, felt-tip pen on paper, 11.5 x 8 in. / 29 x 21 cm; courtesy: Paul Cordina
When an accident strikes an individual – as with Atô – it is thought to be the consequence of an invisible and malevolent action carried out by a supernatural being; the protections usually enjoyed by the victim and his family were not effective enough to counter the attack. Atô turned to drawing to explore his anguish and to hunt down the demons and genies that haunted him, those invisible aggressors of the bush that caused his downfall, those mediators between the divine and the human worlds.
Untitled, c. 2019, felt-tip pen on paper, 11.5 x 8 in. / 29 x 21 cm; courtesy: Paul Cordina
The devastating event of his injury was omnipresent in his first drawings, often manifesting through the motif of the rifle. He insistently drew the spirits that had hurt him, and the protective angels that had abandoned him. Atô is a wounded man who started to make art to exorcise the horrific experience that had befallen him and who depicts his fears to better overcome them.
By PAUL CORDINA
This is an article extract; read the full article in Raw Vision #114.
