Gideon Appah

Born in 1987 in Accra, Ghana, Gideon Appah studied painting at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in Kumasi between 2008 and 2012, at the same time as Ibrahim Mahama. He has developed a pictorial body of work characterized by its palette of tawny colors and conveying both personal memories and a sometimes-romanticized nostalgia for the period of Ghanaian independence. Faithful to the Akan principle of Sankofa, prevalent in West Africa, which encourages looking to the past to build the future, he takes inspiration from his childhood dreams and daily life in canvases inhabited by his loved ones.

From 2020 onward, however, he began to introduce fictional figures into his paintings, finding models and inspiration in newspapers from the 1950s to the 1980s, attesting to popular culture, cinema, the cultural life of Accra, and increasingly, daytime leisure activities, especially those related to the beach.

Influenced by renowned American portrait painters (from Charles White to Noah Davis or Bob Thompson), the landscapes and imaginary scenes in Gideon Appah’s work vacillate between dream and utopia. Detached from reality without ever denying it, they are not a literal representation of Ghana but neither do they completely distance themselves from it.