Atta Kwami is known primarily for his painting and prints, but he also produces sculpture, artist books and installation works. His artworks capture the vibrancy of city life through their rich hues and bold forms, and he recognizes that his aesthetic has been shaped by the many sign painters working in Kumasi whose style of painting appeals to him. Speaking about his work, Kwami states:
The qualities I seek in my work are clarity, simplicity, intensity, subtlety, architectonic structure, musicality (rhythm and tone), wholeness and spontaneity. So many strands inevitably manifest themselves in painting: jazz, the timbre of Ghanaian music (Koo Nimo), improvisation, arrangements of merchandise, and so forth. I also see corresponding aesthetic commonalities with wall paintings and music from northern Ghana, the limited range of earth colors and the pentatonic scale of the xylophone. Poetry is able to sustain the life of language through new forms of usage. In painting it is also re-interpretation, improvisation and variation that affect innovation and development. (Artist's Statement, October 2010, Howard Scott Gallery, New York)
Etching in grey, black, white, red and blue bands of varying widths organized in vertical, horizontal and diagonal composition.
Exhibition History:
Conversations: African and African American Artworks in Dialogue - From the Collections of the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art and Camille O. and William H. Cosby, Jr., National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, November 7, 2014-January 24, 2016
Published References:
Kreamer, Christine Mullen and Adrienne L. Childs (eds). 2014. Conversations: African and African American Artworks in Dialogue from the Collections of the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art and Camille O. and William H. Cosby, Jr. Washington, D.C.: National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, pp. 231, 244, no. 118, pl. 131.
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