Atta Kwami

Suggestion for Black Friday—avoid it altogether and head over to the Howard Scott Gallery in Chelsea. There you will be surrounded by the color-saturated, light-infused work of Ghanaian artist Atta Kwami.

The banded patches of color that instantly suggest kente cloth (Kwami’s mother was an artist and textile designer), also suggest the architecture, sign painting and music of Kumasi, Ghana’s second largest city, where the artist lives, works, and teaches. And like any intricately chaotic, yet purposeful city, the best way to navigate the paintings is to wander through them and even get lost while savoring the variety of brushwork and imagery.

I was lucky enough to meet the artist, and was surprised to learn that many of the pieces in the show were painted in London, and in Washington D.C. during a recent fellowship. Kwami emanates a natural warmth, and when I asked how he could produce these extraordinarily colorful canvasses in such gray places, his answer that “the light comes from within,” was absolutely real and made perfect sense.

With light and peace on this Thanksgiving day …

The show is called Fufofo (Coming Together) and runs
through November 27.

Dzigbordi

Sanku

Dzidefo

Lanier Place Goddess II