Ibrahim Ballo (Bamako, Mali 1986) lives and works in Bamako. He graduated from the Institut National des Arts de Bamako in 2012, and then acquired a Master's degree in Visual Arts at the Conservatoire Balla Fasseke Kouyaté.
Recipient 2020 of the residency program launched by the Institut français and the Cité internationale des arts, Ibrahim Ballo presents his end-of-residency exhibition that he has developed in Paris.
Ironically, the artist's residency project illustrates the most burning current events. Faced with this withdrawal into oneself, without historical equivalent, imposed by the pandemic – this hibernation by obligation in a way – force returns to art, a place of freedom and initiator of a new form of action for the artist. The twenty or so works presented here integrate two cultural forms of knowledge that have existed side by side over the centuries, without interpenetrating each other: textiles, a material of artisanal value known since the beginning of the second millennium B.C.E., with that of painting. The artist is inspired by the bogolan technique used for traditional Malian fabric and cotton loincloths. It is this first thread, this first knot from time immemorial that the artist uses to create an innovative surface characterized by a high relief on the surface of the canvas.