DAMEL ART

Damel - Art - biog Official

I am a visual and audio artist - Mainly a painter in oils and acrylics, but am increasingly drawn to scourced and mixed materials to personalise my work. My career too spans decades of musicianship.

I was born in the ‘smiling coast’, The Gambia, on the West coast of Africa. My recollections of Art are from an early pre school age. These are mainly from sounds: the drumming on street corners; the griot story-tellers; Latin hymns as an altar boy; and the calling from mosques. Visually, I’ve always been a ‘looker’. So much fascination all around, and Gambia as Africa entire, is a place of vibrancy and colour.

The need to express, initially through drawing I feel is innate for me. No prompt was needed for the hours I’d spend as a 6 year old with favourite sticks, drawing in the sand. School introduced colouring materials and opened exciting worlds to me and I revelled.

I was 9 years young when I came to the UK. Sundays were trips to cultural centres: museums; gardens; and galleries. I was now opened up to traditional European art and continued to marvel and explore.

It is the marriage of the richness of these cultures and expressions that informs my Art, and you will find these traditions based on beauty, religion, historical and current day commentary, community and love deeply informing my work, in neo-classic and contemporary styles. A visual and spiritual expression leading to many exhibitions and some notable encounters.
Art is universal and Art is life. It’s best if we can breathe together.

damel_theartist