By Aaron Allen, The Seattle Medium
The Seattle Art Museum (SAM) is showcasing a unique and acclaimed artist from Accra, Ghana, named Amoako Boafo. From June to September, Boafo’s solo debut exhibit, entitled “Souls of Black Folks,” will be on display for the pleasure of art lovers around the Puget Sound region.
Inspired by the seminal ethnographic study, ‘The Souls of Black Folks,’ by renowned author and renaissance man W.E.B. Du Bois, dating from 1903, the show brings together over 30 of his most recent works of art.
“This exhibition is an assembly of work that he has been creating from 2016 to 2022,” says Larry Ossei-Mensah, curator of the Boafo exhibit. “Representing three bodies of work, one series is self-portraits or self-assessments of himself, which evolved into portraits of people that are friends, family, people he admires, and the other portraits are comprised of multiple figures, illustrating radical care, love, joy, all of the various expressions that we have as human beings.”
Born in 1984 in Accra, Ghana, Boafo describes the relationship between art and reality and the connectiveness and expression that binds the two, at least in his reality.
“After teaching myself to draw and paint as a child, I pursued various professions in my early career, most notably semi-professional tennis,” he shares. “I graduated from Ghanatta College of Art and Design in 2008, winning the college’s award for best portrait painter that year. In 2013, I relocated to Vienna, and with artist and curator Sunanda Mesquita, I founded WE DEY, a center for exhibitions, workshops, and community programs that advocate for artists of color and LGBTQ+ voices.”
Boafo describes his method as a view into his life’s experiences.
“Articulating through a Black lens, as a Ghanaian artist based in Accra, Omoako spent time in the states as some of these paintings were made,” says Ossei-Mensah. “And so, I look at him as an artist using his practice as an ethnographic platform to give us an assessment of Black life through his gaze.”
“I think sometimes we look away from our experiences, and painting is a tool for me to express myself. I don’t want to shy away from the experiences,” says Boafo. “I want people to see me looking at it because, for me, I feel like that’s the space where I get to be myself.”
Boafo advocates through his artistry the feeling that the viewer has taken the journey with him, that they were present during the creation.
“I want people to come to the show and feel like they made those paintings with me,” says Boafo. “Because there are all the choices of colors and movement that you see, and you feel like you are part of the painting, or you are there when the painting was made. I want people to have that feeling when they come.”
“Using these different forms of Black expression, just through even hand movements or hand gestures that I think will be very familiar to people from the Africa diaspora,” Ossei-Manseh explains. “And for those who aren’t [from the Africa diaspora], it gives an insight into the various forms of how we express ourselves, how we be, how we exist in the world.”
In a sense, creating our own narrative, that space, time, and location are individual expressions, and through his art, it is Boafo’s aim to connect viewers through and to his experiences.
“Everything is connected,” says Boafo. “To my experience in certain spaces and locations where I find myself and how people look at you and how you feel. I think you know, most of the spaces that I’ve been to before have not been that inviting. And the thing is that I want to change that kind of idea with my paintings. I want to be present. I want people to feel my presence.”
Ossei-Manseh shares his enthusiasm on the opportunity to bring these unique pieces of artistry to the Pacific Northwest.
“I’m excited that we have this opportunity,” says Ossei-Manseh. “I’m excited to share this exhibition with the art community here in Seattle.”
