Seyni Awa Camara

b. 1939, Casamance, SN Lives and works in Bignona, SN Seyni Awa Camara is a Senegalese ceramicist who creates many-headed, totemic works that evoke bestiaries and maternity scenes. The artist, known locally as the “Magicienne de la Terre,” was introduced to traditional pottery techniques by her mother when she was a child. As Camara grew older, she began producing not only the utilitarian ceramics used by her family, but also sculptures to sell in the market near her home. After the anthropologist Michèle Odéyé-Finzi began collecting her works in the 1980s, Camara began to receive increasing attention from the international art world. Now the subject of numerous solo exhibitions, the artist still lives and works in her native Bignona. Seyni Awa Camara (b. 1939, Casamance, SN; lives and works in Bignona, SN) has had solo exhibitions at Baronian Xippas, Brussels, BE; Galeria Kalao, Bilbao, ES; Galerie Nathalie Fiks, Paris, FR; De Crescenzo & Viesti, Rome, IT; and Gallery 39, Dakar, SE. Her group exhibitions include Foundation Louis Vuitton, Paris, FR; Pinacoteca Giovanni e Marella Agnelli, Turin, IT; Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao, ES, among many others. Camara is the subject of a 2015 documentary by Fatou Kandé Senghor, which was presented at the Venice Biennale.