ALMA DE LUCE® presents us through the stunning SONINKE pieces an extraordinary art form that join art and vernacular architecture in West Africa.

It is the celebration of a culture in which women are artists and the home are their canvas.

In the isolated settlements of the southern desert of Mauritania, the Soninke women divide the wall surfaces into panels before painting them with purely abstract geometric designs to create a vibrant rhythm along the flat surface.

Using only the hands and fingers, they apply the paste produced from the mixture of the pigments obtained from the Senegal river land, with white limestone and water, on the mud walls.

The decorations have to be redone every autumn after the rains, keeping the patterns but with different compositions, according to the inspiration of the moment.