Balla Niang Senegalese, b. 1970

Biography
  • Balla Niang, "Terangua", 2022 "Terangua", 2022
  • Balla Niang, Chaise Ébène et Cuir, 2021 Chaise Ébène et Cuir, 2021
  • Balla Niang, Chaise Vertebre Ébène 05, 2020 Chaise Vertebre Ébène 05, 2020
View works
Balla Niang (b: 1980) lives and works near Dakar, in Senegal.

He was trained in woodwork, sculpture, and design by his elder brother, the visionary Babacar Niang. After the latter’s premature death in 2015, Balla strove to pursue and expand his brother’s vision, keeping and developing the family studio: 'Nulangee'.

Crossing functionality with art, Balla Niang creates unique objects with a singular aura, that conjure up notions of Afro-futurism and Surrealism. They are inspired to him by traditional beliefs emanating from the Sahel region, in which the human, animal, vegetal worlds and the worlds of “things " freely mutate into each others.

Balla's favourite motif is the Chair, the closest object that is related to the human physiology. Following the activism of his brother- who was vocal about the deforestation in Senegal, both due to the use of wood as a domestic fuel and to the illegal logging fand trading for the international market- he has committed to use only discarded materials that are sourced locally with the employment of the community.

These include wood: reclaimed pieces of broken, sourced from the remains of bush fires, half burnt, or stumps of local Ebony, Veine (a local Rosewood), Acacia or ‘Bois de Melisse’ (Cordia). He also successfully experiments with cattle horn from which he creates a translucid, beautiful material, and with leather that is sourced close to the studio and tanned there.

Balla Niang and Nulangee exhibited in institutional contexts such as the Biennials of Dakar (Senegal), Coutrai (Belgium), the London Design Festival, and the Musee des Arts Decoratifs in Paris, France. It is in the permanent collections of many Foundations, as well as the CNAP, Paris. 
 
Works
Art Fairs