Amoako Boafo

Amoako Boafo (b. 1984; Accra, Ghana) is innovative in his approach to the presentation of Black bodies; reframing and realigning their dispositions despite the larger global context surrounding Black culture. Acclaimed for his enticing finger-painted portraits, Boafo’s work has become landmarked in the pictorial subset of art history.  

Through striking, often monotone and direct, portraits Boafo engages in an intimate closeness with his subjects. The figures gaze with unwavering firmness as they look to the viewer with stern dispositions. Typically isolated on single color backgrounds, viewers have nowhere to look but at the subjects, leaving little room for misinterpretation. His tableaux vivants  are placed at a high recognition, both physically  regarding  their size and spiritually in terms of their grandeur.  

Boafo studied at the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna (Austria) and in 2017 was  awarded with  the jury prize, Walter  Koschatzky  Art Prize.  His work has been widely collected by private and public collections, most recently by the Denver Art Museum (Denver, Colorado), the Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Pompidou (Paris, France), the Leopold Museum (Vienna, Austria), Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Los Angeles, California), and Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (New York, New York). His work has been exhibited in institutions such as the Volksunde Museum (Vienna, Austria), Kunsthalle Vienna (Vienna, Austria), Mumok (Vienna, Austria), and The Bass Museum (Miami, Florida) among others.