In a country where little to no attention is given to the arts, a group of young contemporary artists has accepted the challenge to revitalize the art scene in Ghana. At the helm of such movement is a pioneering artist known as Gideon Appah. Gideon has been in the arts scene for only a few years and has already been described by Widewal.com as the next big thing to come out of Ghana.
Gideon is a mixed media artist and is known by his trademark signature which includes the incorporation of large numbers into his work in a form of painting. Similar to the Kente cloth of the Ashantis in Ghana, his works are immediately recognizable by those who know by the use of numbers on a mixed media canvas. In an interview with Hello Art, a South African based art website, he was quoted as saying “I had been using numbers in my earlier works from even 2013. The earlier numbers were gotten from the numbering of slum buildings I found in Accra.”
In his works, he explores a style of work which he terms as “Scrawl Painting.” With this style, he communicates his ideas onto canvases by a method of scratching through painted surfaces to reveal previous marks whilst making additions of mixed media items such as jute rugs and Charcoal.
Gideon Appah was born in Accra, Ghana on July 16th, 1987 he lived with his grandmother for quite some time. The social upbringing, he had by living in a large family house is portrayed in his some of his works which he dedicates to his grandmother called Memoirs of Pokua’s Place he had his tertiary education from 2008 to 2012 at Kwame Nkrumah University Of Science And Technology in Kumasi where he studied at the College of Fine Arts and received his diploma. After school, he worked at quite a number of T.V stations to raise capital for his artwork before concentrating on his artwork. Gideon began to recognition after his work after he appeared as a top ten finalist in the prestigious Kuenyehia Art Prize in 2015. With the generous assistance of the Nubuke and Goethe foundations in Ghana, Gideon emerged as the overall winner in the first Merit Award by Barclays L’Atelier 2015, which made him the first foreign artist in the competition's history to achieve such status. This landed him a residency with the Barclays L’Atelier Programme where he worked in the Bag Studios in Johannesburg, South Africa. From there he has never looked back, his work has been featured in studios all over the globe and quite recently, the 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair in New York.
At the 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair where he had a solo exhibition titled Memoirs Through Pokua’s Window (2018), Gideon explores the theme of family ties he had while growing up in an extended family to create an artwork in honor of his late grandmother. As mentioned in the previous paragraph, Gideon lived with his grandmother in a large family home with an extended family. When asked about how this affected his creativity, he had this to say “I grew up in an extended family setting,” he said. “Family members, family friends, close neighbors and religious leaders, they all played a big role. As a child growing up, I was exposed to religious and societal activities and beliefs, which we understood. It passed on from family to family. My grandmother served as a certain kind of spiritual or religious leader to the Christian faith and that carried on for a number of years. Gideon’s work, figurative and laden with expressive gestures, draws from his personal experiences growing up in Accra in the 1980s and ’90s. His collages often incorporate found prints, appropriated posters, family photographs, advertisements, varnished onto canvases and paper The effect is at once haunting and touching.
Artist draw inspiration and influence from other artists and the story has not been any different with Gideon. Both locally and internationally, there a quite a number of artists whose work and style has made an impact on Gideon. El Anatsui an artist from Ghana but does most of his work in Nigeria is one of such artists. Gideon disclosed In an interview with True Africa, an online art site that he admires the works of El Anatsui because of his skills and techniques and scale of work. Other artists he mentioned were Pat Mautloa because of his foresight and knowledge of the art practice, Blessing Ngobeni and Ayanda Mabulu for his work ethics and illustrious nature. Internationally his style of work has been compared to the likes of celebrated Jean Michel Basquiat and Ocas Murillo due to how he combines text, and salvaged objects to create beautiful collages.
When it comes to social media, Gideon doesn't really have much of a presence on it. He has an Instagram account which features some of his old works but seems to be rarely updated. The majority of his clients and curators reach out to him through associates and his representing agency (LKB/G Gallery), a young contemporary art gallery in Hamburg (Germany) which focuses on underrepresented artists with special consideration to those from Africa.
Gideon has a considerable number of incredible painting which can be discussed in detail, however, I choose to focus on a mixed media on canvas artwork he did called Sodom and Gomorrah in Gh. This canvas which borders 154cm x102cm. particularly communicates to me due to the fact that I am from Ghana. The image is one of scrawled lines over a white painted background. It features the most fundamental form of design(lines) in all of its types, from straight lines to zigzag to curved lines. Sections of old newspaper can be seen included in the background of the canvas. The main colors present are yellow, red, black, orange and touches of blue and purple. The orange color is used in making geometric shapes at the border of the work. The yellow color is roughly painted close to the bottom. The red color was used to creates a perfect shape box as a backdrop and to contrast the white color used to write the relatively large numbers. The colors purple and blue hangs on the upper left and upper right edges respectively. In all these elements blend to create a unique abstract painting. This painting has two meanings which run side by side to each other in meaning.
The first meaning is about the slums of Sodom and Gomorrah. Sodom and Gomorrah is a large slum in the middle of the capital city in Accra. In Gideon’s work, he gives his viewers an inside view into the ghettos and slums of Accra. He uses paint, salvaged objects, collage, mark making and text to reflect the grittier side of the world around him. If the viewer has been fortunate enough to have an idea about the environment of Sodom and Gomorrah as I have, he would have a better appreciation of Gideon’s work. He would notice that the painting is an evocative image of the situation in the slums of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Gideon tackles the theme of, wealth, satisfaction and pleasure as these are the downsides of living in the ghetto or slums in Accra. He is quoted as saying, “I sought to magnify these issues and give them a voice. I had a very lively experience in one of Ghana’s most infamous slums, Sodom and Gomorrah in Accra and following that found a burning desire to ‘paint’ a different picture of my roots, transubstantiating that beauty out of decay in some way.”
The second meaning of this work has to do with the use of numbers on the canvas. As mentioned earlier, Gideon has been using numbers in his work for most of his work. The Sodom and Gomorrah Painting have a large numerical fifty painted in white at the bottom with relatively small numbers scattered across the page. Gideon draws this inspiration from the works of lottery kiosk operators on the street of Accra. In the words of Gideon “Aesthetics come from the craftiness of unskilled number writers on lottery kiosks in almost every corner in Ghana” Lottery kiosks operators in Ghana often write numbers they believe would hit in the weekly jackpot onto boards in front of their shops. Gideon incorporates the penmanship of the local lottery kiosk operators in his work by painting relatively large numbers over his work. He draws the viewers focus on the plain beauty of numbers as it stands out from the chaos in the background hence the name Sodom and Gomorrah, exploring the theme of beauty in chaos.
Unlike Ouattara who sees himself as a citizen of the universe, Gideon fully appreciates his Ghanaian roots and makes it known in his works such as memoirs of Pokua’s Place by including artefacts from his family home in the painting and also in Sodom and Gomorrah by including aspects of typical Ghanaian Culture, for instance, the numbers used by lottery kiosks operators. However, he does not limit his works to the scope of Africa alone. He does not subscribe to the term of being called a local artist. His work though locally produced appeals to all manner of people from all corners of the earth.
Given his young his young age, talent and originality, Gideon Appah will probably be one of the leading Ghanaian artists in a decade to come.