Dicko, as a self-taught artist, engages in artistic creations that can be considered pertaining to Naïve Art, especially in his early works. Naivety, childhood, and innocence is the sentiment that can be found throughout all of his photographs and paintings. Strong use of patterns and bold colours, which is abundantly present in Dicko’s works. Through his style and expression, Dicko puts the imagery of lives and people of African continent in a new light; often portrayed as the “Dark Continent,” difficult or burdened with hardships or tragedy.
Upon a closer look, Dicko’s works offer also a different perspective to the current trend of the ecological crisis and how societal privileges are at play. In Dicko’s photographs, plastic, a material heavily decried in today’s mainstream media, is a recurring theme. In the context of the Global North, plastics are to be blamed for the environmental issue, to the extent that they become the symbol of the problem. Naturally, plastics are represented as the villain in the mainstream media and discourse, and are effectively avoided. However, that is the case for the trends in the Global North; in some other areas that are less developed, the often-demonised subject remains an essential. In contrast to the contemporary belief, plastics, especially in Dicko’s work, are portrayed as an element that exists in harmony within the image. This points out to the disparity in abundance of choices and, ultimately, the inequality. “As with everything, what matters is what people do with it,” explains Saïdou Dicko, reminding us that in some countries plastic canisters are indispensable when water is not available.