Unassuming as a ‘typical’ artist, William Sagna’s career has taken him to varying ends of the professional spectrum: from high fashion modelling to athleticism, of which he was a champion of the 400 meters race. In between his various pursuits, Sagna continues to pour his efforts into developing his art practice, his primary approaches being that of drawing and painting.

Perfectly poised between teaching athletics and his creative work, Sagna is considered an ‘eternal dreamer’ of Senegal, his works replete with Senegalese emblems such as the baobab, boat, camel, carts, crane, cycle, effigy, hut, mask, minaret, pestle, sail and silhouette, among others. Imbued with a dreamlike mysticism, Sagna’s paintings speak softly to impossible imaginaries and nostalgia of place, particularly of his hometown. He arranges the motifs across his canvases in clustered forms; each composition deeply symbolic, despite their ubiquitous as cultural symbols.