Cécile Fakhoury Gallery Dakar presents Cour intérieure, a group exhibition bringing together the works of artists Elladj Lincy Deloumeaux, Rachel Marsil and Kassou Seydou.
The vibrant color palettes and recurring motifs in Rachel Marsil’sand Kassou Seydou’s works create a particular rhythm, which Elladj Lincy Deloumeaux’s pastel tones gently temper. A shared language emerges among the artists, moving in two directions: navigating between a private, intimate world and a collective, shared one—in a constant back-and-forth. In this in-between space, a meeting occurs. At the heart of the exhibition, the outside breaks in and the initially polarised space gradually becomes a stage for reconciliation.
The title of the exhibition Cour intérieure translates to inner courtyard and like the arbre à palabres, the palaver tree, in the center of African courtyards, fruits and ceramic objects are placed at the center of the exhibition. The mat, an ancestral cultural symbol, rightly reminds us that the moments of sharing and gathering it evokes connect personal stories to the world.
Elladj Lincy Deloumeaux continues his exploration of the interconnection between a personal history and a plural world. The exclusively male figures he portrays share a similar introspective posture, from which a certain melancholy emerges. In these suspended moments, their wandering gazes raise a question: would we dare interrupt their thoughts to insert our own? And although politely invited into the heart of their intimacy, we remain discreet observers— gently kept, for instance, behind curtains slightly parted.
Rachel Marsil invites viewers to cast a tender gaze upon her female figures, whose features echo across multiple canvases. In a grammar of her own, the artist places the viewer face to face with her characters in studied, familiar poses. Her painterly gesture becomes the mirror of a personal story—nourished by long-shared family narratives—interwoven with the broader one of a community.
A careful chronicler of Senegalese society for several decades, Kassou Seydou consistently depicts scenes from everyday life: family or community gatherings, market scenes, or workers absorbed in their tasks. His painting explores the many forms of collectivity while grounding them in individual—yet universal—narratives. It is this interplay between the intimate and the communal that his work weaves, canvas after canvas.
All of his works feature human figures: people in motion, in exchange, at work, with family, or at rest—figures in which anyone may recognise themselves. They evolve against colorful and vibrant backgrounds, animated by circular motifs that set their own pace. These characters seem to blend into their surroundings, as if never truly separated from them. In the scenographic layout, Kassou Seydou’s works welcome visitors and then close the journey in the last room, thus framing the more introspective paintings of Deloumeaux and Marsil.
Cour intérieure seeks for a total, communal, yet also solitary creative experience for the viewer. From this courtyard, each visitor draws their own interpretations, resonances, and memories; carving an inner path that subtly joins with the artists’ voices—creating, in quiet harmony, the experience of a shared space. The exhibition opened on the 28th of May and will run until the 28th of June 2025 at Cécile Fakhoury Gallery Dakar.
