Biography

Ousmane Bâ is a Franco-Guinean-Senegalese artist based in Japan whose work transcends cultural boundaries to create spaces of liberation and transcendence. Self-taught and shaped by his Strasbourg roots, he developed his artistic vision through audiovisual collaborations before refining his practice as a graphic designer between 2013 and 2017.

His 2018 move to Japan marked a decisive turning point. There, he discovered Nihonga, a traditional Japanese painting technique, which became the foundation of his distinctive visual language. Through drawing, painting, and collage on washi paper, Bâ transforms the human body into a spiritual and aesthetic vector, suspending figures in dreamlike spaces that defy both gravity and societal prejudice.

"I create dreamlike spaces in which I liberate racialized bodies from societal prejudice, from physical gravity."

His work interweaves Senegalese, Japanese, and French cultural influences, drawing particularly from his Fulani heritage, a pastoral West African people whose connection to land and sky permeates his celestial compositions. Bodies float in harmonious arrangements of warm and cold tones, each figure a sculpture in motion, freed from earthly constraints.

Bâ gained international recognition at the 2022 Dakar Biennale with his series Interweaving Entrelacement at Galerie Atiss, followed by exhibitions at AKAA Paris, Art x Lagos, 1:54 New York, and galleries in Geneva and South Africa.

"Bodies are, for me, spiritual, aesthetic, and physical vectors. They are merely objects that make up my spaces of freedom. The creation of each space is a spiritual act through which I try to transcend earthly conditions."

Resolutely cosmopolitan yet deeply rooted in his ancestral traditions, Ousmane Bâ continues to explore the concepts of belonging, freedom, and transcendence, inviting viewers into spaces where cultural memory and contemporary vision merge.

Curriculum Vitae


Solo Exhibitions

  • 2026 January – Solo exhibition, Brussels, Belgium

  • 2025 November – CHANEL presents La Galerie du 19M, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan

  • 2024 May – Ousmane Bâ: Archetypes, Foreign Agent, Lausanne, Switzerland

  • 2024 January – Exhibition, Embassy of Japan, Senegal

Group Exhibitions / Art Fairs

  • 2025 – 1:54 Art Fair, Galerie Atiss, Marrakech, Morocco

  • 2024 June – Sunu Digante, 19M & Black Rock, Dakar, Senegal

  • 2024 May – Amref Art Ball, Charity Auction, New York, USA

  • 2024 May – Encounters, Black Rock Senegal

  • 2023 November – The Sound of Our Souls, UTA Art Space, with ADA Gallery, Los Angeles, USA

  • 2023 November – West Bund Art Fair, Foreign Agent, Shanghai, China

  • 2023 October – 1:54 Art Fair, Foreign Agent, London, UK

  • 2023 September – The Becoming: A Window Of The Self, Peres Projects & Noldor, Berlin, Germany

  • 2023 September – FNB Art Joburg, ODA Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa

  • 2023 May – 1:54 Art Fair, Galerie Atiss, New York, USA

  • 2023 February – Investec Cape Town Art Fair, Galerie Atiss, Cape Town, South Africa

  • 2022 November – Art X Lagos, Galerie Atiss, Nigeria

  • 2022 October – AKAA Art Fair, Galerie Foreign Agent, Paris, France

  • 2022 – Otherworldly, O’DA Art Gallery, Lagos, Nigeria

  • 2022 – Summer Flings Showcasing, Foreign Agent, Lausanne, Switzerland

  • 2022 – Off Biennale de Dakar, Galerie Atiss, Dakar, Senegal

Group Exhibitions (Selected)

  • 2024 May – Archetypes, Foreign Agent, Lausanne

  • 2023 October – Lac Rose, Maat Gallery, Paris

Residencies

  • 2024 January – March – Black Rock Senegal

  • 2023 – Black Rock Senegal

Press & Publications

  • 2023 November – Art News China, West Bund Art Fair

  • 2023 September – Ocula, The Becoming

  • 2023 September – ArtReport.Africa, 5 Standout Booths at FNB Art Joburg

  • 2023 June – Frieze Magazine, Dispatch from Dakar

  • 2023 May – ArtNews USA, Best Booths at 1:54 New York

  • 2023 – ArtNews Africa, FNB Art Joburg: Some Of Our Favourite Picks

  • 2023 June – C&10

  • 2023 July – Artnet, Black Rock Residency Feature