September 2020 Issue of The Wall Street Journal Magazine cover
"Fresh off the launch of his collection with Dior, painter Amoako Boafo presents his latest portrait series in a solo gallery show.
While living in Vienna, Amoako Boafo felt pressured to paint fewer Black people so that Austrian audiences would buy his canvases. 'It was Black equals negativity,' he explains. He refused, deciding to paint people he knows who inspire him. Rather than doing Cecil Beaton-esque portraits of wealthy elite, Boafo finds his subjects in museum directors, writers and community activists - or himself. He says it is a form of body politics. 'I'll paint myself with a book by a Black artist, for example, or I'll paint myself doing something positive,' he says. "I paint to show what I am.'"
