Friends (Senegal Sketch)

Medium: Single colour chine collé lithograph
Image size: 22.3 x 31 cm
Paper size: 31 x 38 cm
Edition size: 10

Sam Nhlengethwa first visited Senegal in 1994 as a participant in the Tenq Artists’ Workshop. Thirty years later, in late 2024, he returned as one of the first artists in residence with the newly established Gorée Historical Trust Society, a Washington, DC-based non-profit.

He spent time exploring the markets and beaches of Gorée, capturing what delighted him in his sketchbook. On the beach, he joined an impromptu soccer game with local boys. He recalls, "I regretted it—those boys are fit and didn't seem to notice how much your feet sink into the soft sand. I struggled to keep up with them!" Nhlengethwa will never part with his sketchbooks, so he chose to turn some sketches from the residency into ten lithographs that depict daily life on Gorée, a place now very different from its history of slavery.  These prints are a rare glimpse into an artist's sketchbook!