Born in 1964 in Dakar, Senegalese artist Alioune Diouf comes from a family of Serer origin. He received a traditional Koranic education while his artistic education was done in the open air, by directly observing the world around him and in contact with a large community of artists. In 1989, he met the painter, sculptor and poet Issa Samb (alias Joe Oukam), an emblematic figure of the Senegalese art world, who invited him to join the famous courtyard of 17 Jules Ferry. He became a member of Laboratoire Agit'Art, one of the first and most important artists' collectives founded in 1973 by Youssouf John, whose key members were Issa Samb, Youssoupha Dione, Djibril Diop Mambéty and El Hadji Sy. The Laboratoire Agit'Art organized artistic experiments and performances, and challenged the ideology of Négritude advocated by President Léopold Sédar Senghor, opening the way for collaborative art forms. In the 1990s, Alioune Diouf was also one of the artists behind the revitalization of the Village des Arts de Dakar, which had been founded by El Hadji Sy in the late 1970s. Alioune Diouf lived for twenty-eight years within the community of the Laboratoire Agit'Art, which allowed him to develop his personal practice while participating in happenings and improvisation workshops.

Writer and journalist Pape Samba Kane wrote of him, "The one who slept (without closing his mind's eye once) in the corner of the courtyard, (...) Alioune Diouf, alone, has absorbed everything from this heritage that speaks of the deepest mysteries buried in ancestral beliefs." His artistic practice takes the form of figurative compositions that employ painting, sculpture, drawing, sewing, embroidery, textile scraps, as well as natural pigments that he produces himself from clay, kola nuts, coffee and plants.

Alioune Diouf’s pictorial universe, both gracious and puzzling, is characterized by intertwined figures, animals, cosmic and floral motifs, as well as by spiritual and sacred symbolism. The boundlessly large dances with the most infinitesimal details of the world in a constant overflow. Each figure drawn - from the bird, to the tree, to the man, to the eye, - never ceases at its edge, but unfolds and stretches beyond its outlines to join the dance of this bustling carnival. In this uninterrupted motion of life, these figures are tied by a single sewing thread, by the same breath that animates all beings. Whether in his paintings, drawings, sculptures, or temporary assemblages of found objects, no fixed form could restrict his gesture, and this is precisely what it is about: accepting the overflow and otherness in all its forms to make humanity happen. The representations of Alioune Diouf's works are similar to totemic faces, conjuring up traditional African masks, often seen in profile and recalling the posture of the characters in the art of ancient Egypt. His work is invested with a layer of symbols whose iconographic reading touches on various cultural, religious and historical beliefs.