ABOUT AMOAKO BOAFO
Amoako Boafo is a painter, born in Accra, Ghana, based in Vienna, Austria.
Boafo’s portrait paintings are enticing in their lucidity, accentuating the figures in each work, who are regularly isolated on single color backgrounds, their gaze the focal point of each work. The brushstrokes are thick and gestural, the contours of the body’s almost soften into abstraction. The most well known of his series, the Black Diaspora portraits, serve as a means of celebration of his identity and Blackness.
Boafo emphasizes, “The primary idea of my practice is representation, documenting, celebrating and showing new ways to approach blackness.” Much of his work is inspired by his upbringing, commenting on how males are raised to be aggressive and masculine, which he challenges in his works. Although the artists underlying messages are quite intense, there is a certain softness to the works as a whole, the poses are serene and the skin luminous.
Boafo studies at the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna. In 2017 was awarded with the jury prize, Walter Koschatzky Art Prize. Widely collected by private and public collectors and institutions, most recently by Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, CCS Bard College Hessel Museum of Art, The Albertina Museum Vienna, and the Rubell Museum.
SOURCE: http://www.artnet.com/artists/amoako-boafo/
QUOTE BY AMOAKO BOAFO
“When you see my work, you know this is Amoako’s work—you don’t have to see the signature.”
WHAT I WISH FOR YOU TODAY
TO KNOW YOURSELF. WOW! WHAT A GIFT. TO REALLY KNOW YOURSELF and STILL love yourself.