Ghanaian Painter Kwesi Botchway Explores the Black Gaze in LA Solo Exhibition
Titled ‘There’s More Than What the Eye Witnesses’.
Ghanaian painter Kwesi Botchway is exploring the Black gaze and concept of identity in a new exhibition in Los Angeles.
Titled There’s More Than What the Eye Witnesses, the new solo exhibition sees Botchway continue his signature practise of reinventing ordinary and imaginary scenes, exploring the duality of Black identity. Taking place at Vielmetter Gallery in LA, the exhibition comprises 18 oil and acrylic paintings alongside wooden frames sourced from Botchway’s hometown in Accra, Ghana.
Curator Essence Harden explained, “In Botchway’s compositions, the act of seeing becomes a material, geographic, and refracted meditation wherein both figure and audience are bound in a series of echoes, nearing infinity, create a serializing effect of vantage.”
Altering the viewer’s perception, Botchway’s works act “as an agent in seeing, shifting the notion of the Black subject as an object instead of asserting that these Black people see you too. The engagement here is a haptic one where touch and sensation are imbued in each work and by the particulars of the viewing audience, creating a productive tension—within seeing,” Harden continued.
Take a look at a selection of the works above, and head to Vielmetter Gallery’s website for more information.
In other art and design news, “MOON” is the new exhibition celebrating women and non-binary photographers.
