Amoako Boafo

Amoako Boafo uses painting to create his enticing characters and honour Black figures’ place into the pictorial tradition of the Portrait. His elegant paintings elevate his subjects, capturing their confidence, style, and character. He is regarded as a notable young voice in art of the African Diaspora through his new approaches to the shaping of Black forms, and their dispositions in a larger global context. Boafo’s portraits are enticing in their lucidity. The brushstrokes are thick and gestural, the contours of the body almost soften into abstraction. Accentuated and elevated figures are often isolated on single colour backgrounds, their gaze the focal point, to disrupt observations from canonical viewership. Boafo’s self-portraits are autobiographical explorations of his embodied self, expressions of vulnerability and creativity that challenge traditional narratives of masculinity. Other paintings represent men, women, and couples, with subjects chosen from friends and others he admires. They convey individuality and an active presence, with most of the figures locking eyes with the viewer and asserting a strong sense of identity.