Abu Bakarr Mansaray was born in 1969 in Tongo (or Tongoma) in eastern Sierra Leone.
He moved to his uncle's house in Freetown, the capital, in 1987.
It is in a country that will soon experience the pain of civil war that Mansaray decides to become an artist. With an incredible will to learn, he reinvents a technique very common in West Africa, which consists of making decorative objects or toys out of wire, to create improbable futuristic machines. "I am an artist who creates without setting any limits. I draw, paint, sculpt... I also invent machines for my own use, and sometimes for others."
Working on the development of systems and machinery, he studies alone in the textbooks of chemistry, physics, electronics, mathematics and proclaims himself successively "Professor", then "The Master", "The Master and Magnificent" and finally "Professor Abu The Magnificent". "My official name is Abu-Bockari Mansaray but most people call me Abu Bakarr Mansaray, which means the master, in reference to my extraordinary skills. I make unique and futuristic sculptures with machines I built myself that make these sculptures dynamic works capable of producing fire, sound, smoke, running, exploding, cold...".
An elusive character, traumatized by the civil war, Mansaray is passionate about science fiction and the only human capable of seeing and understanding the aliens who live among us and want to destroy us. From now on, he exclusively creates extraordinary drawings with graphite and colored pencils. Schematics, accompanied by calculations and comments, representing very precise mechanisms sketching incredible futuristic machines.
There is no doubt that the political, economic and social situation in Sierra Leone, a country where war has left its mark on minds and bodies, has shaped the artist's imagination. In 1998 he managed to flee his country in extremis for the Netherlands, but his work remains a witness to the atrocity of this war.
The titles of his works, Digital man (2004), Sinister Project (2006), The Aliens most sufisticated nuclear hammer SUV (2010), Sufisticated Hell Lizard (2011) or Terrific, Poisonous and Hostile (2011) evoke images of destruction and death and recall the titles of B-movies of science fiction or horror. In The Aliens Ultimate. Bad Ass. (2016) the artist announces the advent of the Aliens and their desire to destroy humanity. A terrifying ship with complex machinery imports alien executioners to Earth who slaughter helpless humans with guns and sickles. Mansaray sees himself as a kind of interpreter of the alien creatures, bearers of a "superhuman" intelligence, and presents himself as the only one who can avoid the announced catastrophe: "Pray not to witness this calamity. See me for the solution".
"I like to make strange and complicated drawings, to create complex machines inspired by scientific ideas that sometimes go beyond what humans can imagine. I want people to feel the power of creation."
