DELPHINE DIALLO

Bio

Delphine Diallo is a Brooklyn-based French and Senegalese visual artist and photographer. She graduated from the Académie Charpentier School of Visual Art in Paris in 1999 before working in the music industry for seven years as a unique effect motion artist, video editor, and graphic designer.

In 2008, she moved to New York to explore her practice after giving up a corporate Art Director role in Paris. Diallo was mentored by acclaimed photographer and artist Peter Beard, impressed by her creativity and spontaneity before collaborating for the Pirelli calendar photoshoot in Botswana. Inspired by new environments on this trip, she returned to her father’s home city of Saint-Louis in Senegal to start her vision quest. Seeking to challenge the norms of our society, Diallo immerses herself in the realm of anthropology, mythology, religion, science, and martial arts to release her mind. Her work takes her to remote outlying areas, as she insists on spending intimate time with her subjects to represent better their most natural energy–“I treat my process as if it were an adventure liberating a new protagonist.”

Diallo’s powerful portraitures unmask and stir an uninhibited insight that allows her audience to see beyond the facade. “We are in constant search for wonder and growth. I see art as a vessel to express consciousness and access to diffuse wisdom, enlightenment, fear, beauty, ugliness, mystery, faith, strength, fearless, universal matter.” Wherever she can, Diallo combines artistry with activism, pushing the many possibilities of empowering women, youth, and cultural minorities through visual provocation. Diallo uses analog and digital photography, collage and illustration, 3D printing, and virtual reality technologies as she continues to explore new mediums. She is working towards creating new dimensions and a place where consciousness and art serve together as a universal language by connecting artists and sharing ideas and learning.” I believe all humans, regardless of racial and geographic differences, share the same collective pool of instincts and images, though these manifest differently due to the molding influence of culture. The time has come to go beyond the individual mind and relate our standard universal connection. We must collaborate, support, inspire, teach, and learn together.”