Ghana is beautiful
If you pause long enough
To see the colour in the squalor
If you pause long enough to sample the order in the odours.
Ghana is beautiful
If you stand long enough
To feel the humor in the clamour
And are not too particular
About what is correct and what is not.
Ghana is beautiful
When you appreciate the patience
Of a suffering people
Waiting to progress.
Teddy Totimeh
And it’s this beauty that the creatives of Ghana highlight with their artwork. Everytime I see a new artist emerging out of the sea of instagram artists hailing from Ghana, I’m reminded of these words- my experience of Ghana, so beautifully articulated by Teddy Totimeh. Everytime I step off a plane at Kotoka airport, a surge of excitement rushes through me as I think of all of the ‘latest spots' I am to discover. In my eyes I no longer see a ‘suffering people waiting to progress’, but an army of creatives driving that progress. Winfred Nana Amoah being one of them. Seeing the colour in the squalor, he has used his talent to turn discarded mobile phone top up cards into works of art to highlight both the joys and ills of his community. Like plastic; a gift from the West with many purposes, these brightly coloured cards, that provide a code to top up credit once the silver scratched, are disposable. And Ghanaians regularly discard them, littering streets, open gutters and buses as they have done for years with plastic bags (rubber). One cannot help but be disappointed when seeing these Western imports congregating together in all crevices of Ghana threatening to swallow Ghana’s beauty whole.
However, using a similar innovation that consolidated the fruitful careers of the greats that came before him: El Anatsui and Serge Attukwei Clottey, he has found a way of transforming this form of ‘squalor’ into the colourful backdrops of his portraits of women in his community.
At first glance his collection just looks like a series of bright portraits of women with brilliant smiles, cleverly constructed with what one may deem as junk. The mathematical skill required to create the faces fusing the mismatched scraps of fabric so seamlessly like Esher once famously fused reptiles to create a carpet is undeniable. The pearly white smiles, and bright eyes, reminding me why forever Ghana has been known for its hospitality, is endearing. And the women, who ooze the same warmth of my aunties or street vendors; happy and proud, are beautiful. However, these ankara fabric scraps MTN and Vodafone top up cards are much more than just another innovative way to recycle junk.
His canvases are tributes to the women in his community, and like much of Ghanaian culture,loaded with symbolism. They are the medium in which this self proclaimed 'vernacular artist' wishes to tell the stories of the women of his home Hoehoe and highlight and discuss something that has long been taboo in Ghanaian society: mental illness.
Womanhood is something that every woman bears on her body. Each line, blemish, crease, inch of fat, flash of white hair holds the secrets of an event from a lifetime of experiences. Each one unique to the individual, but common in the trajectory of a woman. Winfred is mystified by this and attempts to illustrate these multifaceted stories through his portraits. Each one captures a moment in time, whilst highlighting the concept of there being more than meets the eye. His choice to use a number of different fabrics to construct the face (commonly known as patchwork in Ghana) is a conscious one. In Ghana, like names, fabrics too are identity markers - like postcodes- revealing your ethnicity and the location of your ancestral home. They are also woven, stamped, dyed and printed with meaning. A colour or image departing a message to someone who holds the bloodline to receive it.
The mixture of prints used by Amoah, each one pertaining to a specific ethnic group and with a different meaning, reflects the varying moods experienced by the woman: her ups and downs. They are the blemishes received when squeezing the signs of puberty, the creases in the side of the face that surface when in the arms of a loved one, the lines that deepen with each uttering of ‘kwasia sem’ and the blackened pigments that punish you for hating your god given mahogany hue. They are a collision of marks that society brands a woman with, whilst they watch her begrudgingly make each one of them part of her womanhood. Society, as represented by Winfred, are the top up cards that surround the woman. Why? Well as he explains, every calling card has its own unique serial number that directly links one to the user of the card. The user of the card is part of the community and thus the card a representative for them, having become part of that person’s story after use. Therefore this colourful and innovative use of ‘non-recyclable waste’ becomes a story of womanhood spoken in a truly Ghanaian way through the ancient African language of visual symbolism. Ingenious.
But why women? Why has a young male artist decided to use his undeniable talent to highlight the ups and downs of womanhood- something that has not necessarily experienced first hand? As an emerging artist how does he hope to use his canvases to serve his community and tell their story on a global stage? Answers to these questions I hope to pry out of him in Creative Speak!
To find out more about Winfred Nana Amoah, check out his Creative Bio.
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