About the Exhibit - Blue Boys Blues
Gideon Appah’s exhibit, Blue Boys Blues, is on view at Mitchell-Innes & Nash Gallery in Chelsea from November 5th until December 5th, 2020.
The exhibit features large-scale oil paintings of “ mystical landscapes and dreamlike narratives” that revolve around themes of “memory and tradition.” Appah is an artist from Ghana who derives inspiration from his culture and family.
“They are my ways of listening to stories and then trying to paint them out.” Gideon Appah (source)
“Recall and memories are themes in all of my work, I like to refer to an emotion contained in a static moment.” - Gideon Appah (source)
“A mixed-media artist, Appah often draws from personal experiences to create works that are informed by life in Ghana’s capital of Accra, but this exhibition will mark a critical juncture in his practice that incorporates fictional and unknown places and people.” (source)
“His new body of work is, in my opinion, the young artists coming of age, and while he is still very young, especially in terms of artist years, these works show a certain maturing. His earlier works I found were overworked or overthought, and as a young artist obviously heavily influenced by other artists. His newest works show more confidence in his own style, with simple monochromatic colour used in layered textures to provide vibrant evocative paintings.” - Gallery 1957 founder Marwan Zakhem (source)
Appah has clearly already started to evolve as an artist, and has a promising career ahead of him. I’m excited to see where he goes from here.
About the artist - Gideon Appah
Gideon Appah is an African artist, born in Ghana. He received his Bachelor of Fine Arts at The Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Kumasi, Ghana in 2012.
"Growing up in a large family, the works are reflective of a life characterized by strong emotional bonds, religious activities and folklore. Through nostalgic blues, deep green landscapes and charcoal, his dreamlike compositions place typical domestic interiors from 1980s and 90s Ghana against surreal landscapes.” (source)
