About Artist: Sallah Barnabe
To know the beauties of the scenes of everyday life is one thing, but to transpose this wealth onto canvas is another. Sallah Barnabé transports us into the extraordinary universe of Africa’s daily life. A daily newspaper made of dance walks, feasts and colours. Sallah Barnabé chose to paint joy; Touareg women in hats or simply characters in conversation on canvasses made of straw, raffia, salvage material, clay, etc. applied through a master’s hands.
The impact of colours seems to dominate. In fact, he says it himself; it represents his major preoccupation, always, in relation to the abstract figures, without colour, form or gesture. For Barnabé, “You have to be a ‘man’ before you can be an artist! True eloquence laughs at eloquence, In other words, art laughs at art.”
This young painter, born in 1971 in Lomé, Togo and strongly influenced by his father, a renowned painter in his own right and perhaps under the weight of his experience, very early defined himself. In an effort to detach himself, saw a profound inner transformation, turned him into an abstract painter, lovers of art still win in the diversity of his work. The unique and personal way he treats the material cannot leave you indifferent
