My artistic practice is informed by my position as a Ghanaian currently living in the US. I grew up out of a family home known as an Akan, which is the ethnic group to which I belong. When I am located outside Ghana and in another African country, I am known as a Ghanaian. When placed outside Africa, in the United States, I am known as an African. This is how my identity connects to space and place being it local or foreign.
My work encompasses the architectural, geographical, cultural, and social spaces encountered as a person of the diaspora. Intrinsic to my work is the love of materials which are utilized to create complex visual and tactile layers as well as layered associations and meanings to explore cultural identity, hybridity, memories, and place. I use clay to communicate my challenges of occupying these two worlds as forms and shroud them in brightly-colored African batik fabric, yarn and familiar materials found in my daily life to reflect my identity. Although batik fabric is originally manufactured in Indonesia and printed in Africa, the yarn originates in China. Its complex material history symbolizes my cultural hybridity.
My work explores my sense of dislocated national identity, human migration and the present realities in my current space. In my work, I engage with visual language as a form of expression and create a space for the viewer to start a dialogue about identity and question the relationship between belonging and home.
