Amoako Boafo

Amoako Boafo's finger-painted portraits of Black subjects have taken him from Osu to the Guggenheim and LACMA. In 2021 his Suborbital Triptych flew to space on the capsule of a Blue Origin New Shepard rocket.

Osu to Vienna

Thomas Amoako Boafo was born in Osu, Accra, on 10 May 1984. He studied at Ghanatta College of Art and Design and then the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, where some told him his figures were "too black"; he kept painting Black people anyway.

Work

His portraits focus on pose, clothing and skin, which he models with his fingers. He had a residency at the new Rubell Museum in Miami in 2019 and in 2020 worked with Dior on its Spring/Summer 2021 men's collection. The rocket flight took place on 26 August 2021. His first US museum show, Soul of Black Folks, opened at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston in May 2022 and travelled to Denver in 2023, followed by Proper Love at Vienna's Belvedere (2024) and I Do Not Come to You by Chance at Gagosian London (2025). His work is held by the Guggenheim, the Hirshhorn, LACMA, the Albertina and the Rubell Museum.