International Visions - The Gallery is pleased to announce its opening reception for Ibrahima Ndoye and Yaw Obuobi on Saturday, September 9, 2006, from 6: 30 to 9:00 pm.

Hailing from West Africa's most progressive capital city, Dakar, Senegal, glass-painting artist Ibrahima Ndoye combines modernism and traditionalism to create a style of his own. Ibou, as he is known, began his career as a painter in the late 1980s during a period in Senegal called the "Set Setal," or clean-up movement, which encouraged artists to embellish the environment with murals. By the 1990s, he became interested in a traditional form of art from the Middle East which involved painting on glass. But instead of painting traditional African scenes on clean sheets of regularly shaped glass, Ibou started breaking and layering the glass to create new textures and effects. He also incorporated other materials including copper wire, broken bottles, wood, bone, and animal skin into his work. In the late 1990s he began exhibiting around Africa and Europe in local and internationally touring shows, including the Biannual of African Art’s exhibition entitled “The Salon of Glass Painting.” In 1999 Ibou expanded his involvement in Senegal’s art scene when he started running glass painting workshops. Since moving to the U.S., his work has taken on elements of our modern environment, with the additions such as plastic CD cases for canvases and scraps of soda cans and detergent boxes as imagery. He continues to exhibit his work in Africa and Europe, as well as in the U.S., and holds glass painting workshops and lectures at museums, libraries, schools and nursing homes.

Yaw Oboubi was born to a family of artists in Ghana, West Africa. At an early age he mastered the manipulation of such natural materials as grains, leaves, metal and fiber. Yaw’s collage paintings involve the adherence of yarn in diverse forms to produce a visual image. He fashions and manipulates the yarn to best express the particular element - such as sky, water, fabric, skin, hair or a flat, architectural surface - within a composition, using techniques including interlocking, weaving, contouring, layering and shredding. The resulting images depict busy scenes from traditional, Ghanaian life. Obuobi, who studied architecture, interior design and decorating, is a celebrated artist in his home country of Ghana. In 1998, he was awarded the national contract to furnish the Kotoka International Airport with his artwork. His large scale murals are permanently displayed at the headquarters of the Bank of Ghana, and at the Ashanti Goldfields Gold House in Accra, Ghana. His work has been exhibited in Britain, Spain Austria, Germany, Saudi Arabia, as well as in the U.S.

This exhibit will run September 1 - October 1, 2006
Hours: Wednesday-Saturday 11-6 p.m.
For further information please contact Tim Davis, Director/Owner

Complication City, mixed media, 2004, 22x16

Domestic Work, broken glass painting, 2003, 20x16

In the Village,acrylic on glass, 2005, 12x9

Trip To The Market, 2003, 32x42

African Art Dealer, 2005, 23x21

Invisible Father

African Legend, acrylic on paper, 32x32, 2005

Losing Balance While Crossing, 42x32, acrylic on paper, 2004

Paper - 12