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GV Africa Hall
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CU PAN Paintings on display
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CU Mme Seye with Sierra Leone Ambassador Gbiyama looking at painting of apartheid
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SV Artist and Ambassador Gbiyama walk across and look at other paintings including one of destruction (2 shots)
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CU Abstract flower designs using shells (3 shots)
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Initials BB/1700 EW/PN/BB/1730



Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved

Background: An important one-woman exhibition by the leading Senegalese artist, Madame Younousse Seye, opened in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, on Thursday (11 December).

The showing was formally opened by Mr. Adebayo Adedeji, Executive-Secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, in the presence of the artist, the Secretary-General of the Organisation for African Unity, Mr. William Eteki Mboumova, the Ethiopian Minister for Cultural Affairs. Mr. Tekle-Tsarik Mekuria, and the Sierra Leone Ambassador in the capital, Mrs. Shirley Y. Gbiyama.

Madame Seye came to Ehiopia four months ago following an appeal by Mr. Mboumova for African heads of state to co-operative actively in broadening cultural and artistic ties across the continent. He show is being run under the theme "Africa Solidarity -- Africa helps Africa".

In addition to her desire to increase the world-wide status of African art, Madame Seye is also concerned with the role and importance of women in African Society. She hopes her paintings will encourage African men to allow women to emerge to their rightful and equal status. "It is unthinkable to see Africa develop without the participation of women" she has said.

Madame Seye, who has been painting full-time only for eight years, describes herself as "self-taught". She has adopted a fresh new approach to art and its forms, inspired, she says, by the small people-like shells found all over the continent. Many of her more successful designs are compounded of these tiny shells embedded in oil.

SYNOPSIS: Africa Hall, in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa ... currently the scene of an important one-women exhibition by the leading Senegalese artist, Madame Younousse Seye. The showing was formally opened on Thursday under the theme "Africa-Solidarity -- Africa helps Africa".

Madame Seye -- here accompanying the Sierra Leone ambassador to Ethiopia, Mrs. Shirley Gbiyama around her exhibition -- came to Ethiopia four months ago. Most of her works illustrate Africa's problems ... this one's about apartheid. She hopes that exhibitions like this will increase the status of art in Africa...and the following for African art throughout the world.

Madame Seye began full-time painting only eight years ago. She describes herself as "self-taught" ... and has taken the small pebble-shaped shells found all over Africa as one of her main instruments of expression. She hopes, also, that her work will help African women to find their rightful status in modern life.