Larry Amponsah Ghanaian, b. 1989
Her Lordship, 2021
Acrylic Paint on Archival Paper stretched on canvas
150 x 130 cm
Copyright The Artist
Her Lordship Her Lordship bears the artist’s signature of experimenting with digital and collage whilst using his well-developed skills as a painter. The painting -150cm high and 130cm wide- was...
Her Lordship
Her Lordship bears the artist’s signature of experimenting with digital and collage whilst using his well-developed skills as a painter. The painting -150cm high and 130cm wide- was executed on archival paper, then hot mounted on canvas and stretched.
It confirms Larry Amponsah's exhilarating foray into portraiture which he began in 2020. Here, he explores more particularly the canon of representation of power expressed in pre-Modern European portraiture whilst, in turn, alluding to aspects of Post Second World War portraiture by African-American artists such as Romare Bearden.
Carefully painted objects are used as symbols to impart a strong narrative aspect, provoking the viewer to impose a story upon the picture. The face of the figure is rendered in collage with a fluidity that contrasts the erected, hieratic body, bringing life and psychological depth to the character. In some paintings of this series the bright monochrome colours recall the house paint of the facades of many dwellings in Ghana; artfully applied by the painter’s brush, they illustrate the artist’s interest in twisting techniques and codes of representation between the mass-produced and the hand-made.
The young, confident character portrayed is fictional. However, through his sophisticated command of the techniques and politics of image-making, Amponsah manages to convey a tenderness towards his subject that gives it an intense, contemporary credibility, its regal splendour being mixed with a sense of very human fragility.
Her Lordship bears the artist’s signature of experimenting with digital and collage whilst using his well-developed skills as a painter. The painting -150cm high and 130cm wide- was executed on archival paper, then hot mounted on canvas and stretched.
It confirms Larry Amponsah's exhilarating foray into portraiture which he began in 2020. Here, he explores more particularly the canon of representation of power expressed in pre-Modern European portraiture whilst, in turn, alluding to aspects of Post Second World War portraiture by African-American artists such as Romare Bearden.
Carefully painted objects are used as symbols to impart a strong narrative aspect, provoking the viewer to impose a story upon the picture. The face of the figure is rendered in collage with a fluidity that contrasts the erected, hieratic body, bringing life and psychological depth to the character. In some paintings of this series the bright monochrome colours recall the house paint of the facades of many dwellings in Ghana; artfully applied by the painter’s brush, they illustrate the artist’s interest in twisting techniques and codes of representation between the mass-produced and the hand-made.
The young, confident character portrayed is fictional. However, through his sophisticated command of the techniques and politics of image-making, Amponsah manages to convey a tenderness towards his subject that gives it an intense, contemporary credibility, its regal splendour being mixed with a sense of very human fragility.
