Amoako Boafo celebrates Black identities and subjectivity in his portrait paintings. Boafo is a Ghanaian artist and winner of various international art awards. His artworks are collected in many notable art institutions, like Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Leopold Museum, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Centre for Curatorial Studies, and the Albertina Museum in Vienna.
Amoako Boafo: Soul of Black Folks is the first solo museum of the artist. This exhibition, currated by Larry Ossei-Mensah, features over thirty Boafo’s works made between 2016–2022. Boafo’s portrait paintings are bold, powerful, but at the same time bright and cheerful. All of his works depict Black figures’ power in facing global issues, like Covid-19, Anti-Black sentiment, and the commodification of Black bodies in the media.
Amoabea – Masked (2020) portrays a Black woman in a floral pattern face masked. Her red bucket hat catches the viewer’s eye. She in her casual clothes probably is about to go somewhere. As we know, during the Covid-19 pandemic restriction, people cannot freely go outside to reduce the risk of spreading the virus. The subject in this portrait painting seems to face the same situation, but she stays strong and chill.
Boafo is well-known for his colorful portrait in finger painting gestures that makes artworks more vibrant and energetic. The Menu (2020) represents a Black woman sitting in front of a white paper on a table. She is calm in the bright yellow clothes. A bouquet of yellow flowers also appears around her. The yellow color in this painting represents warmth, hope, and optimism.
Another portrait, Deep Pink Sofa (2022) challenges gender distinction in colors that often say pink is for girls. A Black man is sitting on a magenta sofa with a pink background. He also wears a thulian pink t-shirt.
In fact, pink is for everyone. Before the 20th century, pink is considered more masculine since it is a pastel version of red. In the 13th century Christian arts, the blue-red color didn’t show a male-female split but rather a kind of relationship, like mother and son. In religious art, Mary is usually covered in blue robes, representing sacred, purity, and mystical characters.
Boafo received his art education at the Ghanatta College of Art in Design in Ghana and then go to the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna, Austria. In Vienna, he encounters many misconceptions about Black people. Boafo then starts to create artworks that show how he and the Black communities want to be seen, as he says:
“[B]ack when I was part of the Black majority, I didn’t have to explain anything, but when I arrived in Vienna, their notions about Black people were different, and so I felt the urgency to do something to change that narrative. I remember doing works where I was mostly complaining about why they saw us the way they saw us, then somehow, I was like, “Maybe I should just show them how I want to be seen.” (in an interview with Larry Ossei-Mensah, quoted in news.artnet.com).
Amoako Boafo is a remarkable, courageous, and passionate artist. His exhibition, Amoako Boafo: Soul of Black Folks is on view May 27, 2022 – October 2, 2022, at Brown Foundation Gallery, Contemporary Arts Museum Houston.
Amoako Boafo, Art Video Experiment by JRZDKWCZ
