The Goodman Gallery has announced a representation of the legacy of the late Ghanaian painter Atta Kwami, in collaboration with the Beardsmore Gallery in London. Kwami lived and worked between the UK and her native Ghana until her death in 2021, the same year she was posthumously awarded the Maria Lassnig Award. This May a new solo exhibition of the artist’s work will be held at London’s Goodman Gallery in Cork Street.
Born in 1956, Kwami was a prolific creator whose work has been the subject of major public art commissions and solo exhibitions at prestigious institutions such as the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African Art and the Kunsthalle Basel. His work, defined by colorful geometric abstractions, was inspired by Ghanaian architecture and the tapestry weaving traditions made famous by the Ewe and Asante peoples. These blocks of color fields, often arranged in idiosyncratic clusters, became known as “Kusami Realism”, which was heavily influenced by the improvisational rhythms of African music and jazz.
