Afro – Gallonism of Serge Attukwei Clottey
About:
SERGE ATTUKWEI CLOTTEY (GHANA) – founder of Ghana’s GoLokal performance collective – has taken art in Ghana to a whole new level. Born and raised in La, located in Accra, Ghana, Attukwei has known he wanted to be an artist since he was in primary school. His father is a famous artist within and so he derived some of his passion for art that way – but found a new way to articulate his vision for art and social justice in the world.
His artwork grapples with issues of environmental, political and cultures concern within Ghana, both with his mixed-media sculptures and paintings. He attended Ghanatta College of Art and Design where he completed with a diploma in fine art. In 2006, Attukwei was offered a sponsorship opportunity to study art in Brazil and came back with a new attitude towards his art and a renewed appreciation for everything in life. For him, art has always come first – even before feeding himself sometimes. He eats, sleeps and breathes his artwork; it is as much a part of him as his skin and has exhibited Africa, Europe and America.
“Nothing like magic ….Am traditionally a painter but the process of my work becomes a performance….
Attukwei: I often work in the studio and later show my work. So people don’t get a close relationship to my work [in process] and they might find it hard to understand. Also, the materials that I use are materials people use and dump. So I want to create that relationship between waste and humans for them to understand that someone dumped this and this and the artist transformed it into a different thing.
We also think about bringing art closer to the people. The things that happen around us and in the whole country influences and inspires us to come up with our performance ideas. Not everybody in Ghana understands the kind of contemporary art we do. Thinking of moving our work from galleries to public space and then to individuals also sways our performance ideas.
Attukwei: We want to help develop communities with our performances. There are so many issues like poor sanitation and corruption affecting the country and just a few artists use those topics in their work. There is no performing group in Ghana that criticizes politics, religion and the lack of environmental protection. The idea of GoLokal is to be strong enough to challenge those issues affecting the country.
(quotes from interview of NANA OSEI KWADWO in Accra.ALTRadio)
http://sergeoclottey.blogspot.nl/