Anthony Amoako-Attah displays tribal identity at Heller Gallery’s glass art exhibition
Anthony Amoako-Attah explores themes of individual and tribal identity, consumer culture, and migration in his first American exhibition, ‘What Do You See,’ which features panels and representations of commonplace items that are very decorative but also deeply meaningful.
The works in ‘What Do You See’ were created in the fall of 2022, when Attah was an Emerging Artist-in-Residence at the Pilchuck Glass School in Stanwood, WA., and first exhibited in the U.S. at the Heller Gallery, New York. These glass arts will be on display from February 10 – March 11, 2023.
Born in 1989 in Kumasi, Ghana, he received his MA (glass) in 2016 at the University of Sunderland, where he is now a PhD candidate in Art and Design (glass and ceramics). He completed a BA in Industrial Art (ceramics) at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Kumasi, Ghana.
Prior to the Heller Gallery’s exhibition, Amoako-Attah’s works were exhibited at the Collect Art Fair in London in 2022, at the National Glass Centre in Sunderland, and at Sunderland Museum, which commissioned him to produce an artwork for their collection in 2020.
Amoako-Attah kilnforms glass plates and powders to make pieces which use the colors and patterns of Kente designs and Adinkra symbols. His New York unveiling represents an intrinsic Ghanaian culture flaunted through the glass art on display. Heller Gallery according to a press release is “pleased to present What Do You See, the gallery’s first exhibition of new work by Ghanaian artist Anthony Amoako-Attah,”
“We identify, nurture and represent emerging artists as well as prominent international masters. Numerous artworks have entered preeminent public collections as a direct result of Heller Gallery’s exhibitions and advocacy.”
The gallery was founded in 1973 and it provides a curated platform for studio artists whose practice incorporates glass and whose work with the material broadens the horizons of contemporary culture.
New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art and Museum of Modern Art have acquired works from the gallery as has The Corning Museum of Glass, The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and numerous museums worldwide, including Victoria & Albert Museum, Musee des Arts Decoratifs de Louvre, and Hokkaido Museum, among others.
Through the language of Kente cloth, Amoako-Attah has also added his works to the gallery’s collection. His Ghanaian textile, traditionally handwoven of strips of silk & cotton, that is now mass produced as printed fabric, explores themes of personal and tribal identity, commodification, globalization and migration.
Amoako-Attah was the Winner in the Aspiring Glass Artists 2020 category in Warm Glass UK’s The Glass Prize. He taught at the Pilchuck Glass School in Washington State and the Pittsburgh Glass Center in 2022. He lives and works in England.
Source: TheAfricanDream.net
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Abeeb Lekan Sodiq is a Managing Editor & Writer at theafricandream.net. He is as well a Graphics Designer and also known as Arakunrin Lekan.
