VISITATION
I was born in Ghana.
After five years of being away, I finally got the chance to revisit this special place and I couldn’t have been more excited. I was also extremely eager to produce work and I simply knew Ghana would provide me with tons of inspiration.
I had forgotten what how different everything was.
The air.
The environment.
The people.
My original intention was to find interesting faces to paint. Specifically the faces of people from the northern regions of Ghana. This was because I knew I would find a lot of people with scars and facial marks. As a painter, who has always been interested in colour within the human figure, I felt that the blend of scars and tribal marks would be fascinating to explore artistically.
Unfortunately I was unable to make the trip to the Northern part of Ghana to realise my first plan.
Bummer.
But as an artist, I have always had a problem — which I think might be an advantage as well — where I look to illustrate and plan an image of what I want to paint. This can be a issue in the sense that, it does not give me room to grow or divert my research into something else; something more beautiful. This somehow makes my thinking and creative process lengthy, but it all eventually becomes worth it.
ALBINOS IN GHANA
Like I said, my intention during my 2015 summer holiday in Ghana was to paint ‘interesting’ faces. And I did find interesting faces. In fact these faces were closer to me than the faces in the north — they just weren’t what I had intended to paint originally.
‘Interesting’ to me at the time meant tribal marks, scars, sweaty faces and striking faces that instantly had an impression on me.
I had no distinct intention to extend my interest to the subject of albinos. However I came across several albinos in Ghana and felt a sudden urge to meet them and to paint their faces on my canvas. Whenever I expressed these thoughts and feelings to my family and to the people around me, I realised how deeply rooted the word ”albino” goes.
Albinos all around the world are likely to be segregated and singled out, or made aware that they are different. In eastern parts of Africa it even goes as far as superstitious believes where albinos are thought to have some magical power that provide riches for anyone who uses their body parts for rituals. Albinos are being hunted, attacked and killed currently in certain regions of this continent.
I had several discussions with people about the difference between ‘gingers’ and albinos. People tend to put them in one category and this shouldn’t be the case. I believe there shouldn’t even be such categories in the first place. These are normal people like us, human beings like us.
I asked my cousin, “what would you call a white person with orange hair and freckles?” and he said ‘ginger’. Then I asked “what will you call a Ghanaian with orange hair and freckles?” and he said ‘ofiri’ meaning albino.
Work in progress.
OFIRI JATO
As a painter, I was drawn to the idea of creating a moment to simply appreciate color; not necessarily to point out the discrimination albinos face.
But albinos in Ghana are heavily discriminated and given names like ‘obroni pete (pronounced ‘pay-tay’)’. ‘Obroni’ is a term used to refer to a white person in Twi and ‘pete’ means vulture, and alludes to a rubbish dump.
In countries like Tanzania, they are even called ghosts. And over there the discrimination has gotten to the extent of some migrating to the remote island of Ukwere where they feel safer.
I digress.
Back to painting and colour:
In my experience, red + green can make the ordinary skin tone for a common brown skinned person in Ghana…
And through my eyes, it would take over three different shades to paint an albino with a set of primary colours…
Perhaps I’m wrong…
It was this journey to find their ‘inexistent’ skin tone that fascinated me…
Work in progress.
RED
Neither frail nor pale
Because by night I worked out my pigment scale
Umber
Red; définir souvenirs sur le feu et d’observer la fumer
Burnt Umber
Pure perfection
Apparently
I
Am
The only one who sees the layers;
because when I mentioned it all he saw was Red
See I thought I was in..
Pause, Fast-forward, Rewind, Erase
Analyse every word to separate myself from grey areas
Holding hands like a tree holds on its roots in familiar areas
Behind the subject of colour
My not so little brushstroke which created not-so-little impressions
Red.
Delicate but not powerful enough to grasp my attention
My presence amazes you
Yet a mere description of what and who I am becomes a simple pigment
Red.
This post was written by Annie-Marie Akussah, a Ghanaian visual artist currently living and schooling in the UK.
See more of her work at http://akussahdesigns.blogspot.co.uk/
