EVENING STANDARD: KOJO MARFO, THE MAVERICK GHANAIAN ARTIST ON HIS NEW EXHIBITION, AND WHY TRUTH TRUMPS BEAUTY

Nancy Durant, Evening Standard, September 25, 2023
This latest show is an attempt to appeal to our humanity, something that tragedy has taught him is all-too important.
 
Kojo Marfo's Streatham studio is like the artist's studio of your dreams. Tiny, at the very top of a slightly crumbling terrace overlooking the Common, and absolutely rammed to the gills with the Ghanaian artist's paintings and materials. I'm surprised anyone can get in the door; I struggled, but now I'm gingerly ensconced in a small, paint-splattered armchair opposite where Marfo sits, hat on head (he is never seen without one), in front of one of his huge canvases.

 

And what a canvas it is, as yet unstretched, tacked onto the wall almost from floor to ceiling. Two female figures, one recognisably a black woman, the other with the almost spectral face of an Akan fertility doll (a common object where he is from, in the mountainous region of Kwahu, and a signature in Marfo's work) stand taller than the artist himself. One holds a baby, whose head resembles a tribal mask; the other cradles a cockerel; in front of her stands a dog. The colours are popping, the context ambiguous. These two have a proud, calm presence, looking directly at you as if patiently waiting for you to state your business and go away, so they can get on with whatever they were doing.
 
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