"Delphine Diallo was born in 1977, in Paris, to French and Senegalese parents. After graduating with distinction from the Acadamie Charpentier School of Visual Art in 1999, she worked as a designer and animator for a number of clients in the music industry, including Coldplay, the Smashing Pumpkins, and Manu Chao. In the last year she moved to New York City, where she works as a freelance graphic artist. She recently had her first show in Brooklyn at Harriets Alter Ego and her second at the Gallery MC.
In 2005, Delphine Diallo traveled to St. Louis, Senegal in search of her family heritage. The ensuing Magic Photo Studio series is inspired in large part by the work of Malick Sidibe, who ran a studio in Bamako, Mali, during the 1960s, producing earnest, straightforward portraits in whimsically painted glass frames. In her work, Diallo compresses pattern and image into a single composition; patterns extracted from the textiles, totemic animals, and plants are brought directly into the image itself and layered on top of the portraits. These techniques are drawn from her background as a graphic designer and illustrator. The alchemical mix of painting, sketching, and notation on top of the images also connects the work to a contemporary vein of graphic-novel and graffiti-influenced drawing in the manner of Zak Smith or Margaret Kilgallen. The result is a richly textured and deeply personalized approach to portraiture."
"I can't imagine living in a regular life with no art and no music. I'm dreamer even if the world is crazy." - Diallo
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