Joseph Nana Kwame Awuah-Darko

The beautifully honest, intimate, and healing work of Okuntakinte aka Joseph Nana Kwame Awuah-Darko.

I have been following his work for a while now and it is fascinating to see something that is drawn from meticulous Excel spreadsheets produced to track his moods. Each colour is a mood. From happy to sleeping or depressed, from digital colour to oil on canvas. Raw painting, you can see the thickness and strokes and gaps and some messiness around the edges. But that’s us, humans. No perfect.

These paintings have evolved to forms against bands of colour, reminiscent of both Ghanaian Kente cloth and the paintings of Atta Kwami. I can even see human forms. Human vs abstract. His identity and his thoughts and the whole himself at once. I find it honest and very intimate. And the gallery space helps. Ed Cross Gallery is a very small, quiet space, in a narrow street, somehow hidden, but nurturing this amazing body of work.

Watch video here.