Kelvin Hazel, young artistist from Ghana
About:
There is a selection of artists whose work we can consider truly important. The most prominent among them continue to create without boundaries hence the secret to so many artists living so long is that every painting is a new adventure. So, you see, they’re always looking ahead to something new and exciting. The secret is not to look back.
In an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that are often site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space, the interior spaces, whereas exterior interventions are often termed public art, land art or intervention art; however, the boundaries between these terms overlap to either be temporary or permanent which incorporates a broad range of everyday and natural materials which frequently involves the audience acting on the work of art or the piece responding to users’ activity, here comes the man who fuses installation and media in his art, Sultan Haizel.
EARLY DAYS
Sultan was born in the form of Kelvin Haizel–the month most commonly cited is April. He grew up in an intense communal space; from a large family and started boarding school at the young age of about eleven. Both communities (home and school), the place of the individual was profoundly reticent and communal at the same time. Contributing to his aesthetic mindset, his artistic practice became a way of navigation in place of the individual as part of a community and as a community onto oneself; which is largely due to postcolonial construction of spaces. Haizel graduated with a BFA (Painting) degree from the college of Art and Sciences, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), demonstrating a range of influences from installations, mixed media and performance as an entry point for conversations into our individual and collective socio-religious heritage. His conversations revisits his own nostalgia growing up in dense communities, as well as find answers to present dogmas “we” are “supposed” to accommodate due to “our” orientation.
HIS ART
The physical and cultural landscape of the century, Ghana intrigued and beckoned the young Sultan Haizel–upon completing his studies in Fine Art and he set off for paintings that intrigue the mind. He established himself in the capital of Ghana, working creatively for an artistic amusement. He has produced enough psychedelic artworks, exhibited largely in Ghana and will later drop in on the ABSA Gallery in Johannesburg–South Africa, come 15th of July.
Sultan also has an ongoing project “Am I Invited” which allows volunteers to invite and host a showing of his work in their living spaces. A child of contemporary Ghana, Sultan Haizel is also a child of his times. His art of primarily modern icons expresses both biographical signature and western culture critique. His pop culture symbols are spewed, and therefore viewed, along the urban and artistic landscapes.
It’s the artistic and commercial success that has allowed his art gallery exhibitions to amuse audience hence reaching a spot in the ongoing Asiko residency hosted in Maputo, Mozambique.
Painting is silent poetry, and poetry is painting that speaks. (text copyright: Samc illa Baakojr on website Bjrworld.com, June 2015; copyright pictures: the artist)