Macoumba ‘Maku’ Ndiaye, is a Senegalese artist based in Finland. Born in Dakar, in the Niayes Thioker neighborhood, he developed his artistic practice through an early apprenticeship with renowned Senegalese artists Moussa Diop, Louis Gomis, and Mbaye Diop at Cours Sainte-Marie de Hann in Dakar. 

After years of exploration and experimentation, Macoumba developed a distinctive visual language rooted in his African heritage while shaped by his experience of living between Africa and Northern Europe. His work combines symbolic figures, rhythmic patterns, layered textures, and contemporary forms, drawing from African traditions, everyday realities, cultural memory, and identity. 

For Macoumba, every painting carries a story. Rather than reproducing what has already been seen, he seeks to create new visual possibilities through experimentation and personal expression. As the renowned New York painter George Condo has observed, avoiding the “already seen” is one of the great challenges of painting. For Macoumba, however, it is precisely through this challenge that new forms of difference can emerge.

For this exhibition, Macoumba presents three distinct approaches developed during his recent artistic residencies. Senegalese and West African motifs hold a central place in his practice, serving as a connection to ancestral heritage and cultural identity while creating a dialogue between tradition and contemporary expression. Maku’s life in Finland and the distance both physical and also emotional to Dakar -  allows him to look back at Dakar through a new cultural prism, still embedded but also once removed.

The Pulse of Dakar braids Macoumba’s Senegalese roots and Nordic journey into vivid memories that have laid dormant and only recently manifested into what he calls:  ‘This is my Dakar - not a Postcard.’

Macoumba has exhibited extensively in Senegal, Europe, and the United States. His recent projects include the 2024 Dakar Biennale Off programme, an artistic residency at Village des Arts de Dakar, and exhibitions in Helsinki and Atlanta. Through his art, Maku explores culture, diversity, multiculturalism, and unity, using Africa as a point of origin. His work seeks to create bridges between people and cultures, highlighting the importance of equal opportunities and the recognition of diverse talents.