Characteristics of Contemporary Ghanaian Art
With the advent of formal school education in the 1900s, the introduction of Western concepts
of Art education featured prominently in the school curriculum. Learners were exposed to
Western artistic canons of accurate proportions, realism, perspective, foreshortening, amongst
others. From the training through school education, three major categories of artists emerged.
The first category, according to Prof Ernest Victor Asihene, the then Dean of College of Art, were
those who works with fresh unsophisticated and unbiased source; the second is the copyist
artists who tap his ideas from European source; and last is the artist who imbues his creations
with his/her cultural nuances though s/he may borrow from other sources (Cudjoe, 1968 as cited
in Essel, 2014).
The third category of artists contributed to shaping the trajectory of Ghanaian art in the
contemporary artworld. Their works showed hybridity, experimentations, modernist tendencies,
freestyle and individualism. The works of the pioneering artists (Fosu, 2008) such as Vincent Kofi
(Figure 11), J.C. Okyere (Figure 12), Kobina Bucknor (Figure 13 & 14) were exemplary. The doings
of these category of artists influenced the succeeding generations including Kofi Setordji (Figure
15).
Vincent Kofi, for example, was noted for his wooden sculptures which incorporate African
concept of proportions in a modernistic style. His figures are imbued with exaggerated and
distorted configuration of forms that pay homage to African sculptural sensibilities.
Okyere makes a metonymical visual presentation of the Ghanaian ideals and values placed on
womanhood by his symbolic rendition of what appears to be three palm trees in human figural
characteristics. The trees take the form of feminine figures depicted with heavy bulbous buttocks
and rounded breasts. The lower parts of the tree-like and feminine form receive short horizontal
strokes that add to defining the palm-like characteristics of the trees. Two of the tree-like human
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figures of the left of the painting wear realistic facial details, and beaded in the ears. In creating
variety, Okyere varied the posture and physiognomy of the figures with one facing the viewer
with the back with the two others faces the viewer. The figures wear palm branches and fronds
as flashy coiffures. With this painting, Okyere questions the stereotypical thought that Ghanaian
women are totally neglected in the society, and that sexism is the order of the day, as dishonest.
His presentation is a testimony of the long-held thought of women as enigmatic figures in
society. The palm three symbolizes strength, power, abundance, supremacy, fruitfulness and
profitableness in Ghanaian cultural and philosophical thought. The symbolic association of
Ghanaian women with the palm tree as objectified in the artistic presentation of Okyere is a
confirmation of societal values and premium placed on women.
Kobina Bucknor is noted for his personalized artistic accent which he calls sculptural
idoms. For example, his representation on the subject of libation (Figure 14) ‘exudes a
pool of invited ancestral heavyweights in dramatic invocatory arrangements depicted
with intercessorial somatic forms of oval shapes and visual rhyming colours.’ He ‘ushers
the central figure into a sanctimonious conjecture in a way that appears to be observing
the formulaic opening addresses that characterize libation pouring — a call on God,
Mother Earth, deities and ancestors in that order before proclamation of any
supplications. With this painting, Bucknor gives an annotated visual description to the
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perceived hour of spiritual visitation whenever and wherever libation is poured. He saves
viewers’ time and energy for imaginative perception about the figural activity yet focus
their minds on the varying expressive facial details of the multiplicity of masks that
engulfs a centrally placed human figure clothed in a colourful toga-like tapestry.’ (Essel,
2014, p.44)
Evidently, the contemporary Ghana artists namely, Kofi, Bucknor, Okyere and Setordji resorted
to their cultural roots from artistic inspiration in their creations despite the contemporary touch
of their artworks. It is also important of note that the early Ghanaian art were created by artists
trained in indigenous formal apprenticeship education which was a system of art education in
Ghana before the advent of Western art education. The indigenous artists who created the
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works have their own artistic traditions (Antubam, 1963; Fosu, 1975; Asihene, 1978; Rubin,
1984; Fosu, 1994).