Owusu-Ankomah

Owusu-Ankomah was a Ghanaian painter and one of the best-known contemporary African artists. His large canvases set human figures among dense fields of symbols, above all the Adinkra signs of the Akan, alongside Chinese ideograms and other scripts, and explore identity, the body and consciousness.

Early life and training

He was born on 24 October 1956 in Sekondi and studied at Ghanatta College of Art in Accra from 1971 to 1974.

Career

From 1979 he travelled to Europe to meet artists and galleries, and in 1986 he settled in Bremen, Germany, where he lived for the rest of his life. He reinterpreted Adinkra symbols for the gallery while keeping much of their original meaning, and his paintings, many in black and white, drew on the Renaissance and ancient writing as well as sacred geometry. Between 2004 and 2008 he withdrew to reflect and study, and emerged with what he called the Microcron, a "symbol of symbols" with its own philosophy, which shaped his later, more colourful work shown in the exhibition Microcron Begins.

Death

He died on 6 February 2025, aged 68.