Abdoulaye Konate | Artist Overview

Abdoulaye Konate creates large-scale textile-based installations using woven and dyed clothes, materials native to his homeland Mali. Konate?’s abstract and figurative tableaux explore both aesthetic language and diverse socio-political and environmental issues. Referring to the West-African tradition of using textiles as a means of communication, the artist balances the global issues with an intimate reference to his own life and country.
His work often questions the ways in which societies and individuals have been affected by factors such as war, the struggle for power, religion, globalization, ecological shifts and the AIDS epidemic. His works look like wall tapestries: most of the time they are composed of layered, hand-embroide- red cotton ribbons. Colors play a big role and the choice depends not only on the composition he has in mind but also on the symbolic meaning: if he uses red it is possible that he refers to violence, white has a more positive connotation, black refers to death, yellow is both the land underneath and the sky above.