Storytelling Through Textiles: Abdoulaye Konaté’s “Symphonie en couleur” @ Blain Southern, London

Abstract, colourful, layered, full of textures: Abdoulaye Konaté's works can definitely be described using a long list of adjectives, even though he mainly employs one material to make them – fabrics.

Born in 1953 in Diré, Mali, Konaté lives in Bamako, where his studio is also based. The artist studied painting at the Institut National des Arts in Bamako and then at the Institut Supérieur des Arts in Havana, Cuba, before going back to his home country where he also became the founding General Director of the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers Multimédia Balla Fasseké Kouyaté in Bamako.

Konaté is well-known all over the world for his textile-based installations: the recipient of many awards, he has been celebrated with several exhibitions all over the world and, in two weeks' time, he will get his first solo UK exhibition at Blain Southern in London.

Entitled "Symphonie en couleur", the exhibition promises to be a feast for the eyes and for the heart as well: the event will feature new abstract tableaux inspired by the hues found in rocks and minerals, but will also remind visitors that Konaté often employs fabrics to tell a story, make his voice heard and spread important messages or comment about contemporary political and social issues.

Throughout the years he has indeed touched upon key issues including AIDS (he did a monumental 6000sqm patchwork piece that covered the pitch of the Bamako football stadium for the opening of the 2002 African Cup of Nations), refugees and migration, and religious and ethnic clashes (his piece "No Sharia in the Sahel" was a call for education against extremists and fanaticism, while his "The Pencil", originally inspired by the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris, is a celebration of freedom of speech).

Commenting about some of his socially engaged pieces, Konaté stated "I wouldn't say I am an activist but I am interested in social issues. I see human suffering. People usually portray it under a political angle; I prefer to do so under a social angle."

Konaté usually works with four assistants in his studio, and employs in his pieces a technique inspired by the colourful capes of the Senufo musicians and by the Kôrêdugaw ritual.

This hand-embroidered layered system of ribbons that Konaté has mastered points therefore at a reinvention of cultural heritage (bear in mind that Mali produces over 500,000 tons of cotton per year…) and shows that traditions and textiles can be adapted to tell new stories. Each piece is also "signed" with his trademark embroidered signature.

The use of textiles in his work is very symbolical: while textiles are woven by men, cotton is spun and dyed by women, so that in one artwork Konaté reunites a dichotomic vision of labour.

Konaté's pieces go from monumental and figurative to abstract, from minimal to intricate, yet they share one thing – they are all striking visual and tactile fabric compositions, riots of colours in harmoniously arranged gradations in which, at times, one shade – indigo blue, the colour of Mali – symbolically prevails.

In this new event visitors will discover sophisticated shades and glowing tones created by mixing and collaging fabric strips: "Composition vert émeraude et rouge" will celebrate for example the geology of Mali through a polychromatic patterning that recalls the vivid colours found locally in amethyst, epidote, garnet and quartz.

Yet visitors will also be invited to engage in broader reflections and go beyond the abundance of colours and the playfulness of the strips dominating the surface of the artworks to confront global issues, including the colonial history of the African continent and the inequalities of the garment industry.

Konaté's practice and his textile actvism indeed break the boundary between art and crafts introducing people to new frameworks that can help analysing in a more accessible way complex topics and themes.