The Brooklyn-based Franco-Senegalese photographer deconstructs clichés and renews African history and imagination with a rich and varied visual language that restores black women to their rightful place in the pantheon.
Delphine Diallo's universe brings sunshine to the heart. This protean Franco-Senegalese artist, based in New York for over ten years, frees herself from the codes of representation of patriarchal society to highlight the evolution of black women and cultural trends
on the African continent.
After an introduction to music, graphic design and art direction, this graduate of the École d'art visuel de l'Académie Charpentier in Paris decided to change her career path. This decisive choice arose from her meeting with American photographer Peter Beard, who taught her the rudiments
of the profession.
Since then, she's been building her career behind the lens. Her credo is to empower women by transforming them into fighting goddesses, and to dream of a future matriarchal society.
DIVINE FEMALE
A committed activist, Delphine Diallo doesn't hesitate to take a stand on issues in her artistic work. Her photographs draw on spiritual symbols, mythology, martial arts, science, anthropology and non-Western literature. She uses a variety of motifs (body paint, masks, jewelry, heroic outfits) and tools (artificial intelligence, archival images, analog and digital cameras) to create her own way of "looking back", imagining the future and questioning the superficiality of beauty ideals.
What she wants is to decolonize black female bodies, change mentalities and shape new legends. Delphine Diallo develops creative stagings, redefines the historical genre of portraiture, explores the potential of the self-portrait, and creates collages and montages for new narratives in a harmonious world.
NEW GENRE
All these archetypes of female representation are now shattering the lines in her iconography, which has become a beacon of empowerment and encouragement. Her work has been published in several international magazines (New York Times, Vogue, Forbes), in a beautiful book, Divine
(Éd. Hat & Beard Press, 2022), and continues to be exhibited in galleries and museums around the world. His most recent major exhibitions include "Kush", at Picto Gallery, New York (2024), which paid tribute to black women, depicted in Afrofuturistic costumes,
generated by AI and immersed in landscapes reminiscent of Ethiopia and Egypt. Or "Lost Memorie / Black Diaspora UK" on Piccadilly Circus (2022), a collage of stories about black history, beyond slavery and colonization.
A multi-faceted body of work, with a beautiful magnetic energy, for an emotional visual artist.
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@DELPHINEDIALL
