<p>We revisit the Ghanaian painter's cosmic destiny</p>
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Matthieu Jacquet

Amoako Boafo, the artist who sent his work into space

<p>In collaboration with <em>Numéro art</em></p>
<p>July 20, 2021 – All eyes are on billionaire Jeff Bezos as he boards his New Shepard rocket for his first suborbital flight. A historic moment that received worldwide media coverage and marked the beginning of space tourism. Over a month later, the American businessman launched another one with his company Blue Origin in Texas. Nobody boarded the capsule this time, but visible on the white surface at the top of the rocket was a painting by&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/49084/Amoako-Boafo" target="_blank">Amoako Boafo</a>,&nbsp;showing the silhouettes of three Black people.</p>
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<p>Sensitive and obsessively rendered, the faces in Amoako Boafo’s paintings tell their subject’s innermost stories. At times placid, radiant, or serious, these faces of people from Accra, familiar from the artist’s childhood, are portrayed on canvases measuring up to two meters-square. Most of the time, the characters are isolated in simple and intimate settings, occasionally broken up by striking washes of color. Together, they form an authentic portrait gallery that the artist has been enriching over the past decade, particularly in his ongoing series ‘Black Diaspora’. But how can we explain the worldwide clamor for this painter’s works, whose subjects and compositions seem, all told, to be rather classical? The answer becomes clearer by looking closely at his canvases and paying attention to the Black skin of the models – dozens of sinuous lines superimposed in shades of brown, blue, ochre, purple, and beige create striking reliefs. To achieve this, the artist, who has been based in Vienna since 2014, dips his hands into his palette and applies oil paint directly using his fingers, leaving the trace of their passage inscribed on the surface. This technique has become his signature style, leading his gallerist <a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/gallery/2239/Mariane-Ibrahim" target="_blank">Mariane Ibrahim</a> to describe him as a sculptor rather than a painter, noting that he willingly drops his brushes to engage in a hand-to-hand encounter with the canvas ‘until they both become one.’</p>
<p>Ibrahim was the one who discovered the young artist’s work by chance on Instagram five years ago. She was immediately drawn to his paintings, and especially impressed by the boldness and ‘unconventional style’ of the series of nude self-portraits. Little did she know that her discovery would quickly lead to a profitable collaboration. In December 2019, shortly after they began working together, Ibrahim took a gamble and devoted a stand to Boafo’s work at Art Basel in Miami Beach. His work, until then unknown, attracted a great deal of attention and his six large canvases sold like hotcakes, leaving many collectors frustrated. Everything started to take off immediately afterwards. Several institutional exhibitions followed, including one at the Museum of the African Diaspora in San Francisco in 2021, which then travelled onto the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston. </p>

<p>To the international art world, Boafo’s success may appear extremely sudden. Yet, according to the artist, it is first and foremost the result of 17 long years of hard work to prove his talent and the legitimacy of his practice. As a teenager growing up in Accra, Boafo enjoyed drawing and painting. He participated in several art competitions to hone his pencil skills. Put off by the prospect of a precarious life, the idea of an artistic career was a dream he never allowed himself, despite his all-consuming passion. Instead, he took up tennis with the aim of becoming a professional, hoping that this choice would provide him with enough money to devote himself to art later in life. Then, suddenly, one day a benefactor showed up. Impressed by his art and his determination, they offered to pay for the young painter’s education at a school of art and design in Accra. In 2014, Boafo followed his wife, the Austrian artist Sunanda Mesquita, to Vienna, where, after a difficult start, he gradually made a name for himself. </p>
<p>Boafo’s paintings reflect the life he divides between the African and European continents and the encounter between various cultures and influences. Among his greatest inspirations, he cites <a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/8633/Kerry-James-Marshall" target="_blank">Kerry James Marshall</a>, one of the best-known living African American painters, <a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/8644/Lynette-Yiadom-Boakye" target="_blank">Lynette Yiadom-Boakye</a>, whose intimate portraits of the African diaspora now travel the world, and <a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/11609/Kehinde-Wiley" target="_blank">Kehinde Wiley</a>, who also discovered Boafo on Instagram in 2018 and encouraged him to keep working on his art. However, while Boafo shares with the latter a certain talent for glorifying his Black subjects, long exoticized by the white gaze, Wiley’s vibrant settings are antithetical to Boafo’s bare backgrounds which invite the viewer to focus solely on the main character. The ultra-detailed work on the skin is in sharp contrast to these sober and plain settings, and it recalls the work of <a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/11446/Egon-Schiele" target="_blank">Egon Schiele</a>, a key figure of the Viennese Secession, in whom the Ghanaian has developed a keen interest since he moved to Austria.</p>

<p>In 2020, the creative director of Dior’s menswear collections, Kim Jones, drew his inspiration from the painter’s work to design his Spring/Summer 2021 collection. The clothes featured the soft, luminous colors of Boafo’s canvases, from canary yellow to salmon pink, cerulean blue, and lilac, as well as masculine faces precisely embroidered onto cashmere jumpers. Just like this collaboration and his work on Bezos’ space rocket, the artist is fond of opportunities that allow him to step outside his comfort zone and expand his art into new areas. ‘For me who grew up thinking the sky was the limit, it was exciting and uplifting to be able to extend my painting to a much larger scale,’ says Boafo of the groundbreaking, historic project.</p>
<p>Now aged 38, Boafo would like to reassure the uncertain teenager he once was, and encourage him to follow his dream. Indeed, even before seeing the validation of his work by the Western art scene, the artist sees his successful career as ‘an opportunity to show the community that saw [him] grow up that making a living from one’s passion is possible.’ In order to offer his compatriots the opportunities he once lacked, last December he launched a new project entitled ‘dot.ateliers’ in Accra, whose primary goal is to ‘cultivate a sustainable artistic ecosystem.’ Located a few steps away from the Atlantic Ocean, the three-story building designed by the acclaimed architect, Sir David Adjaye, will host temporary exhibitions, a library, a café, and above all, young artists in residence. Boafo’s ultimate dream? To build a new art school in Ghana to provide a comprehensive education for its students and enrich the African art landscape, thereby hoping to bring the recognition he has himself received to plenty of other new talents.</p>

<p>This article is part of a yearlong collaboration between Paris+ par Art Basel and <em>Numéro art</em>. Click <a href="https://www.numero.com/fr/art/amoako-boafo-kenny-germe-edem-dossou-mariane-ibrahim"><strong><em>here</em></strong></a> to read the original article.</p>
<p>Amoako Boafo is represented by <a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/gallery/2239/Mariane-Ibrahim" target="_blank">Mariane Ibrahim</a>&nbsp;(Chicago, Paris)&nbsp;and <a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/gallery/1258/Roberts-Projects" target="_blank">Roberts Projects</a> (Los Angeles).</p>
<p>Matthieu Jacquet is a journalist and art critic based in Paris. He writes about art and fashion for <em>Numéro </em>and <em>Numéro art</em>.<br></p>
<p>English translation: Emma Naroumbo Armaing for <em>Numéro art</em>.</p>
<p>Published on May 31, 2023.</p>
<p>Caption for full-bleed image: Amoako Boafo,&nbsp;<em>Hug from behind</em>, 2022. Courtesy of Mariane Ibrahim.</p>

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