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Baba Wague Diakite: Balancing Moon and Earth
Sylvania North View Gallery
- Dates: January 6 to February 4, 2011
- Artist reception and talk: Thursday, January 13, 2pm
Writer, illustrator, sculptor and ceramic artist Baba Wagué Diakité was born in 1961 in Mali, West Africa. He spent his early childhood in Kassaro, a small agricultural village, tending sheep, working in the rice and peanut fields and stalking animals in the bush with his friends. He later moved to the town of Bamako where he enrolled in French school to complete his formal education. The artist came to the US in 1985 and settled in Portland, where he began producing his highly acclaimed books and painted ceramic work, which remain infused with West African Folklore and the rich experiences of his rural childhood.
Wague’s work has been exhibited throughout the US including the Craft and Folk Art Museum of Los Angeles and the New York Public Library. A recent book publication, The Hunterman and the Crocodile, was named a Coretta Scott King Honor Book. He is the founder of the Ko-Falen Cultural Center, in Bamako Mali, which promotes artistic and educational exchanges between citizens of the United States and Mali. Wague, his wife, the sculptor Ronna Nuenschwander and their two children currently share time between Portland and Bamako.
The North View Gallery is pleased to present “Balancing Moon and Earth,” a collection of the artist’s original book illustrations, ceramic sculpture, masks, and bogolanfini (mudcloth) tableaux.? Wague will be on campus to discuss his work and the Ko-Falen Center in Bameko on Thursday, January 6.? A reception will follow.