Laye Thioune is a Senegalese visual artist and musician, recognized for the expressive richness of his pictorial universe. Through vibrant colors and dynamic forms, he explores themes related to identity, memory, and everyday African life. His work, rooted in tradition while open to modernity, reflects the social and cultural realities of Senegal and is part of a contemporary artistic approach. Thanks to his sensitivity and distinctive style, Laye Thioune stands out as a significant figure on the Senegalese art scene.

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He lives and works in Dakar, in SICAP Liberté 5. He graduated from the National School of Arts (ENA) in Dakar in 2013 in music, and continued his studies at the same school in visual arts, where he graduated top of his class in 2020.

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SOLO EXHIBITIONS (SELECTION)

2026: Guiss Guiss, After5 Art Escape, Arad, Romania

2024: Les Traversées - Crossings, aKAZI, Atlanta, GA, USA

 

SCHOLARSHIPS & PRIZES

2024: Winner of the Africa Prime Initiative Scholarship for Emerging Artists

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GROUP EXHIBITIONS (SELECTION)

2026: Perhaps Someone is Here, After5 Art Escape, Arad, Romania

2026: Art Show Dakar, Musée Théodore Monod de L'Institut Fondamental D'Afrique Noire, Dakar, Senegal

2026: Teranga in Atlanta, aKAZI, Atlanta, GA, USA

2025: Arad Biennial - Meeting Point, Arad, Romania

2025: ARK*HIVE, Galeria Delta, Arad, Romania

2024: OFF Biennale de Dakar, Loman Art, Senegal

2024: Soppiku - Metamorphosis, Loman Art, Dakar, Senegal

2023: Blue Biennale - International Visual Art Biennale, Brașov, Romania

2023: Gorée Regards sur Cours, Ile de Gorée, Senegal

2022: Les Rencontres Sur Le Fleuve, Saint-Louis, Senegal

2019: Fesmirafrica, Musée d'art africain Théodore Monod, Dakar, Senegal

2018: OFF Biennale de Dakar, L'Ile de Ngor, Senegal

2018: Les Rencontres Sur Le Fleuve, Saint-Louis, Senegal

2017: Fesmirafrica, Gorée et Dakar, Senegal.

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"Laye Thioune practices both painting and sculpture, depending on his inspiration. By a surprising contrast, he only paints faceless characters and only sculpts faces without bodies, one being able to compensate for the other in an endless back and forth.

 

His works are generally very colorful and, therefore, appealing, but what emerges curiously is a form of stoicism combined with a diffuse melancholy, which might have its roots deep in the artist's experience. This succession of contrasts and the questions it raises in us exert a form of inexplicable fascination. His characters, observed from the front or the back - one never knows - give the impression of tiptoeing. Yet, it is not tranquility that they exude, but rather a form of instability, so characteristic of the artist's search and our search for meaning in our lives.

 

Likewise, his masks, which we must remember that the primary function is to hide, to disguise reality, are rarely smiling and happy without ever expressing sadness, a clever balance between more and less, too much and not enough.

 

You have to enter this universe and let yourself be carried away by the artist’s extraordinary and brilliant sensitivity."

 

Sylvain Sankalé - art critic