It was only a year ago when Amoako Boafo announced he would jettison his work into space. It makes sense in many ways, the artist has seen, for a lack of a better term, a meteoric rise in the past five years, appearing in group exhibitions such as LACMA’s Interscope Reimagined, along with providing the visuals to Dior’s Summer 2021 campaign.
Back down on Earth, the Ghanaian artist is presenting his first museum solo exhibition to date. Housed at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston (CAMH), Amoako Boafo: Soul of Black Folks presents over 30 paintings created since 2016, including a site-specific installation at the museum.
Boafo primarily works across figuration as he creates vibrant reflections that center around Black subjectivity, Black joy and the Black gaze. “Soul of Black Folks is my museum debut, therefore I am intimately invested in each stage of the exhibition’s journey,” said the artist in a statement.
The show traces back to his days living and painting in Vienna, Austria — where according to a press release by CAMH, Boafo experienced racism and a lack of support for his practice. The exhibition follows four stages: the first starting with self-portraits Boafo created as a cathartic practice. Eventually these portraits began to depict friends and family, along with scenes of joy and closeness — a yearning to the confinement imposed by the pandemic. The final stage is the aforementioned mural that acts as a through-line for the both the exhibition and Boafo’s practice thus far.
Amoako Boafo: Soul of Black Folks is on view at CAMH until October 2.
In related news, ‘Ulysses’ Dream’ is a new group exhibition inspired by The Iliad.
Contemporary Arts Museum Houston
5216 Montrose Blvd,
Houston, TX 77006
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