Kofi Awuyah Ghana, b. 1988
“I don’t remember the first time I saw Picasso’s Guernica, but it’s ability to capture emotion stayed with me because it talks about everything from pain and hardship to life and death. As an artist I want to represent not only death and life but the culture of people.”
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Kofi Awuyah (b. Accra, 1988) is a Ghanaian artist whose practice includes several mediums such as painting, sculpture and installation. He explores a range of themes from culture to religion, politics, human existence and death, with predominantly the use of acrylic, oil and charcoal on canvas. After high school, Awuyah enrolled in Business School. However, as he was spending all of his time painting with local artists, he eventually changed direction and decided to fully dedicate to the development of his artistic career by studying Fine Arts at the Vision Art College. Kofi does not merely mirror the socio-political realities that surround him, he instead engages and challenges them with his work by daring to confront difficult themes such as his community’s oppression over the years. He has exhibited in Burkina Faso, Togo, Ivory Coast and Denmark and this is his first solo show with Gallery 1957.