...I Dreamt of Pink Sunsets and Purple Nights

Review written by Bayo Hassan Bello.

25th June 2021, Grand-Bassam, Côte d’Ivoire.

I imagined myself on a musical journey in a tropical paradise; luscious winds blowing through louvered windows, surreal arches and slats of lights dancing on white-washed walls. I dreamt with my eyes wide open of pink sunsets and purple nights. The tune Roads by Portishead was playing, as I became entranced in an euphoria of fantasy, mystery and conviviality conjured up by visual artists Mansan and Nuit Balnéaires in their latest exhibition Magic Bassam. In Magic Bassam, I saw a milieu of fantastic landscapes and familiar moments, an euphoric stillness that is both historic and contemporaneous in its subtle references of the spiritual and the mundane.

Exhibition View | Photography by Nuits Balnéaires

Of course I had experienced the passing of time - standing on terraces, laying on the grass, reading a book or simply enjoying a restful nap. Never have I seen a more graceful stand than in Mansan’s “Leve De Lune” painting of an elegant woman in a flowered pink dress, a petal in her stylishly coiffed hair, nails painted green and a bronze ring on one finger of her hand rest on the terrace of a house in the village of Bassam. To her left was a full moon nestled within palm trees that appeared to be dancing in front of and behind her, she looked quite resplendent in the fading pink of sunset and the rising purple of the night.  “Fatima En Adetutu'', Mansan’s take on the most valuable African art, Portrait of Princess Tutu (also dubbed as the African Mona Lisa’s) by modernist painter and sculptor Ben Enwonwu is a masterpiece of classical Renaissance portraiture, unsurprisingly it drew a lot of attention. In each of Mansan’s paintings, her female icons exude perfection, poise and power. 

The works by Nuits Balnéaires featured in the exhibition Magic Bassam were drawn from the series “Renaissance and Redemption”, both of which illustrate the ambivalence of the natural environments surrounding Grand-Bassam. In the Renaissance series, a collaboration between the artist and costume designer Ellen Elias, the pair explored the regenerative power of the surrounding coasts of Mondokou and their sentimental attachments to this environment. Aziz Da described “Meditation” from the Renaissance series as a visual paradox of how young Africans look for themselves in their history and aesthetic traditions, while embracing foreign influences; as well as their urgency to create new narratives for themselves, an astute summation which I completely agree with. The piece is of a young girl with her eyes closed, clad in a lime and gold bomber jacket, large Akan gold weights on her ear and fingers; dreaming like the others in the Renaissance series. Seemingly, they will find solidarity with nature in the series Redemption.

Opening | Photography by Jean Louis Tomety

I continued on my journey, this time rocking to Cymande’s ‘Dove’ as I moved through the sanctuary where Magic Bassam was situated, Luc Ragot’s newly opened private showroom in Grand-Bassam and the town’s very first contemporary space in what seemed like aeons. The high ceilings and arches of the designer and architect’s showroom felt like a cathedral, complete with antique candelabras, arrays of benches, tables and canapes designed by Luc himself; including pieces by designers Jean Servais Somian and Issa Diabate, aged wooden statues - not of Madonna nor Christ, but of primordial African deities and ceramic objects with geometric motifs from Tanou Sakoussou, an artisanal town known for its mastery of pottery. I asked Luc about Magic Bassam and his newly opened space to which he said, “the exhibition set the exact tone of the soul that he would like to give to the showroom. A demonstration of sensitivity and artistic talents in an atmosphere full of sincerity and joyful complicity”.

As the night fell, the honks of passing cars began to crescendo over the white noise of the ceiling fans. I stepped out onto the terrace and there it was... traces of pink and purple in the sky, much like what I had seen in the works of Mansan and Nuits Balnéaires behind me. My hand rested on the balustrades, bronze ring on one finger, yes like in Mansan’s Leve de Lune; except I wasn’t wearing a pink flowered dress...She was a queen...She had a house, I heard the messianic lyrics of Khruangbin White Gloves as Diane Ngako remarked on Magic Bassam as a beautiful conversation between two sincere and authentic artists who share their passion and spontaneity with works that makes one smile. Their works made me dream.