Fragments and Stitches of Ghanaian Idioms: A Catalogue of the Life and Works of Kwaku Asaku-Gyapon, An African Modernist Sculptor

Fragments and Stitches of Ghanaian Idioms: A Catalogue of the Life and Works of Kwaku Asaku-Gyapon, An African Modernist Sculptor

Mantey Jectey-Nyarko , Kofi Adjei & Kwame Opoku-Bonsu

Issue: Vol.5 No.3 Issue Article 9 pp.257-270
DOI: https://doi.org/10.38159/ehass.2024539 | Published online 15th March, 2024
© 2024 The Author(s). This is an open access article under the CCBY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

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ABSTRACT

This study sought to explore the practice and philosophical foundation of Kwaku Asaku-Gyapon (1932 – 2018), an artist educationist of the African modernist stock, from the 1960s to the 1980s that shaped the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) artistic traditions and generally the Ghanaian sculptural representation. The study seeks to contribute to existing literature on African modernism, following up on karî’kachä Seid’ou’s “J. C. Okyere’s Bequest of Concrete Statuary in the KNUST Collection: Special Emphasis on “Lonely Woman” which sheds light on the artist’s ethos and practice in the midst of seeming erasure and wrong attributions. The study looked at the artist’s three-decade practice, in mainly concrete statuary, terra cotta, wood, and metal (rarely), as part of mid-20th century Ghanaian nationalist repositioning. This is part of the African art that evolved by blending foreign materials and techniques with native African concepts in which artists used revolutionary tools and methods, along with indigenous storytelling practices, to tell their stories in various forms. The study adopted archival research and interviews of the artist as well as descriptive-analytic research methods of the qualitative approach. The study revealed that the artist’s concepts and themes emerged from his personal experiences, sociocultural environment, and political events of his era. It also shows the artist’s practice as commission-dependent in which personal explorations of materials (cement, metal, terrazzo, wood, clay) and techniques in life modelling, casting, and carving were prioritized. The Authors conclude that Kwaku Asaku-Gyapon was a prolific but less exposed Ghanaian modernist artist educationist, in the light of how he adopted the indigenous Asante storytelling approaches through the application of traditional and non-traditional materials and techniques.

Keywords: Asaku-Gyapon, Ghanaian Idiom, Artworks, African Modernist Sculptor, Indigenous Storytelling

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ABOUT AUTHOR(S)

Mantey Jectey-Nyarko is currently a Lecturer at the Department of Painting and sculpture, Faculty of Art, in the College of Art and Built Environment, KNUST-Kumasi. He holds a Ph.D in Art Education, MFA in sculpture and a BA (Hons) in Art, all from KNUST Kumasi Ghana. He is a practicing artist with an interest in Painting and Sculpture, Art Education and History of African Art. As an artist, Mantey believes in interpreting concepts from the indigenous Ghanaian environment into artistic forms, to promote Ghanaian Cultural Identity. His research interests are in the merging of indigenous and contemporary idioms in preserving the Indigenous African Concept of Artistic Expression in an ever-changing socio-cultural environment. Currently, he is looking at how to document the life and practice of prolific, but less written-about artists in Ghana.

Kofi Adjei is a Senior lecturer at the Department of Industrial Art, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana. He holds PhD in African Art and Culture and MFA Ceramics, and teaches courses in ceramic art and design technology. He also practices as a studio artist with many years of professional experience. His main areas of research include Ceramic Art and Design with specific interest in Ceramic Materials and Methods, Ceramic Finishing and Mixed Media. His research also looks at African Art and Culture in areas of African Aesthetics, Contemporary Visual Culture and Ornamentations in Architecture. His current research looks at the life and practice of a prolific, but less written about artists in Ghana.

Kwame Opoku-Bonsu is an Art Educationist who teaches at the Department of Painting and Sculpture, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana. He holds a B.A. Hons and a Master of Fine Art (MFA) from KNUST. He is a practicing artist with a special interest in stone and wood carving. His research interests are in studio practice, emerging methodologies and meaning in the plastic arts as cultural symbols.

TO CITE ARTICLE

Jectey-Nyarko,Mantey, Kofi Adjei & Kwame Opoku-Bonsu.“Fragments and Stitches of Ghanaian Idioms: A Catalogue of the Life and Works of Kwaku Asaku-Gyapon, An African Modernist Sculptor,” E-Journal of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences 5, no.3 (2024): 257-270. https://doi.org/10.38159/ehass.2024539