A Glimpse at the Artist

Annie Sène is a mix of  the French, Senegalese, and Guadeloupean cultures enriched by the presence of her family. She is self-taught to the bones, growing from trial and error through the years, always persevering in acquiring new knowledge and skills in order to accomplish her dreams.

She explored several media including black pencil on paper, charcoal and pastel. These media allowed her to experience work space, form, light, shadows and color. Her leitmotiv has always been the same: to explore the complexity of human nature and the ensuing diversity. At the start she touched upon sweetness and femininity with the portrait form using a black pencil or charcoal. She made a significant foray into the world of oil painting in which the subject was an African top-model turned activist. Whereas the preceding works concerned the face this one shows the body of a woman.

The next period, oil on paper touched upon the identity, the femininity, and intimacy in the world of the adult and also the innocence and sweetness in the child. Pastel followed accompanied by nude models. Next she applied herself to oil painting using different subjects: landscape, people, and animals. “Métamorphose” was a turning point in her work as she begins to use a semi-abstract approach. At the same time her work has been gaining in dimensions she has been burying hidden treasures here and there in her paintings. The treasure hunt is on!

She painted her first oil painting on canvas in 1992. But we must wait until 1993 to see her first oil painting exhibiting superior aesthetic and technical qualities. Starting in 2003, in France, she frequented workshops  to be in the presence of other artists in an Association known as the Quatre-A and participated in group expositions with them for two years. Several of her paintings were exposed in Montreal at the Charles Garo Gallery in 2010 for a duration of 10 months. In 2012 she had her first solo exhibition at Chez le Portugais and has exposed on a regular basis since then. She exibited her works at La Galerie Lamoureux Ritzenhoff for several years. In 2015 her painting "La Source Sauve" was the prize winner for the poster of the Rallye Expos 2015, Vues d'Afrique.
Annie Sène teaches painting to different groups of senior citizens. She also organizes Karaoke sessions, mainly la chanson française, for some of her students.