Coccinelle No.1

ABDOULAYE KONATÉ (B. 1953)  

Coccinelle No. 1  

embroidered with the artist's signature and date 'A. Konaté 2022' (lower right); signed twice, titled, and dated 'Coccinelle No. 1 2022 A. Konaté Abdoulaye Konaté' (on the reverse)  

textile  

60 1/4 x 44 3/4 inches (153 x 113.7 cm)  

Executed in 2022.

PROVENANCE:  

Private collection, Accra

NOTES:  

Born in 1953 in Diré, Mali, Abdoulaye Konaté is one of the most internationally celebrated contemporary African artists, renowned for his monumental textile-based works that merge minimalist abstraction with the aesthetic lineage of traditional West African craft practices. Trained at the Institut National des Arts in Bamako before continuing his studies in Cuba, Konaté developed a distinctive visual language rooted in layered strips of dyed and woven fabric. His works often address themes of environmental fragility, spirituality, migration, disease, and social conflict, transforming textile into a medium capable of carrying both aesthetic and political weight. Drawing upon the deep textile traditions of Mali while engaging the formal language of modernist abstraction, Konaté creates compositions that are at once materially sumptuous and conceptually rigorous.

Executed in 2022, Coccinelle No. 1 demonstrates the artist’s extraordinary sensitivity to color, rhythm, and surface. Composed entirely of layered textile, the work unfolds vertically through a gradual chromatic transition from delicate pale pinks to deep, velvety burgundy tones. Konaté’s suspended strips of fabric create subtle shifts in density and movement, allowing color to operate almost atmospherically, as though the composition were breathing or vibrating with light. Near the top of the work, a solitary ladybug emerges as both visual interruption and symbolic anchor, introducing a moment of quiet narrative within the otherwise meditative abstraction.

The title, referencing the coccinelle or ladybug, imbues the work with a sense of delicacy and transformation. Long associated with renewal, protection, and ecological balance, the insect becomes a subtle but potent symbol within Konaté’s layered textile environment. As in much of the artist’s practice, abstraction here is never entirely detached from lived reality or symbolic meaning. The tactile richness of the fabric and the gradual movement between tonal registers create a contemplative visual experience that rewards sustained viewing, balancing monumentality with remarkable intimacy.

Konaté’s work has been exhibited extensively worldwide, including major presentations at the Venice Biennale, the Dakar Biennale, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, and the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art in Washington, D.C. His works are held in numerous international public and private collections, and he is widely regarded as a pioneering figure in the elevation of textile within contemporary global art discourse. Through his fusion of material tradition and contemporary abstraction, Konaté has profoundly expanded the possibilities of textile as a medium for both artistic expression and cultural reflection.