Amoako Boafo

Amoako Boafo (b. 1984 in Accra, Ghana; lives and works in Ghana) is known for his innovative 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 within 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 firmness as they look toward the viewer with resolute dispositions. Typically isolated against single-color backgrounds, viewers have nowhere to look but at the subjects, leaving little room for misinterpretation. His tableaux vivants are elevated to a place of high recognition, both physically through their scale and spiritually through their grandeur.

Boafo studied at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna (Vienna, Austria) and was awarded the Walter Koschatzky Art Prize (Vienna, Austria) in 2017 and the STRABAG Art Award International (Vienna, Austria) in 2019. In 2022, he founded dot.ateliers, an artist residency in Accra, Ghana, offering non-commercial opportunities and support for artists by providing resources and fostering community. In 2026, Boafo was selected as the inaugural mentor for the MAISON PERRIER Art Prize, hosted at dot.ateliers. His broader practice also includes collaborations with Dior (2021) and Blue Origin (2021).

His work is held in major public and private collections, including the Hessel Museum of Art, Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College (Annandale-on-Hudson, NY), Fondation Louis Vuitton (Paris, France), Longlati Foundation (Shanghai, China), the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) (Los Angeles, CA), the Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Pompidou (Paris, France), the Rubell Museum (Miami, FL), the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (New York, NY), and Tate Modern (London, UK).

His work has been exhibited at institutions including the Belvedere Museum (Vienna, Austria), Bozar – Centre for Fine Arts (Brussels, Belgium), Kunsthalle Wien (Vienna, Austria), Kunstmuseum Basel (Basel, Switzerland), the Seattle Art Museum (Seattle, WA), the Denver Art Museum (Denver, CO), the Museum of the African Diaspora (San Francisco, CA), the Wooyang Museum of Contemporary Art (Gyeongju, South Korea), and the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (Zeitz MOCAA) (Cape Town, South Africa), among others.

The artist’s forthcoming solo exhibition will open at our Paris space in October 2026.