{"id":1165092,"date":"2022-04-08T02:54:00","date_gmt":"2022-04-08T02:54:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/04\/08\/rumors-of-blackness-kwesi-botchway-corrects-colonial-arts-history\/"},"modified":"2022-04-08T02:54:00","modified_gmt":"2022-04-08T02:54:00","slug":"rumors-of-blackness-kwesi-botchway-corrects-colonial-arts-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/04\/08\/rumors-of-blackness-kwesi-botchway-corrects-colonial-arts-history\/","title":{"rendered":"Rumors of blackness: Kwesi Botchway corrects Colonial arts history"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div id=\"article-text\" style=\"line-height: 2; letter-spacing: -0.5px;font-size: 18px;\">\n<p>                        <!--p class=\"ky_saved_articles_link\"><span class=\"ky_saved_articles_hide\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\" class=\"ky_saved_articles_img\" alt=\"Rumors of blackness: Kwesi Botchway corrects Colonial arts history\" title=\"Rumors of blackness: Kwesi Botchway corrects Colonial arts history\"><\/span> Bookmark<\/p-->\n<p>Ghanaian artist, Kwesi Botchway has once again blown the minds of the art world in Brussels a city in Belgium with his captivating portrait paintings. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Kwesi the contemporary impressionist, as he likes to describe himself, dubbed this art exhibition <strong>\u2018Rumours of Blackness\u2019<\/strong> and was held at Maruani Mercier Gallery.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"1024\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/WhatsApp-Image-2022-04-07-at-6.27.13-PM3-1024x1024.jpeg\" alt=\"Rumors of blackness: Kwesi Botchway corrects Colonial arts history\" class=\"wp-image-10032060781\"   title=\"Rumors of blackness: Kwesi Botchway corrects Colonial arts history\"\/><\/figure>\n<p>Kwesi said he had observed that over the years when black figures were depicted, they were either servants or enslaved. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn art history, the black man was almost never visible, and this did not feel right as black artist who celebrates my \u201cblackness\u201d so I had to change the status quo\u201d he said in an interview with Ghanaian art writer Pep Junia.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"750\" height=\"925\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/WhatsApp-Image-2022-04-07-at-6.27.13-PM4.jpeg\" alt=\"Rumors of blackness: Kwesi Botchway corrects Colonial arts history\" class=\"wp-image-10032060780\"   title=\"Rumors of blackness: Kwesi Botchway corrects Colonial arts history\"\/><\/figure>\n<p>In this show \u2013\u00a0<em>Rumors of Blackness \u2013<\/em>\u00a0these are portraits of girls and women. Models from his environment, fictional models or models inspired by photos from magazines. He says he chose the genre because he loves it.<\/p>\n<p>That may be so, but there are more reasons why he prefers the portrait. In art history, the black person is hardly visible. When black figures are depicted, they are usually servants or enslaved.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"842\" height=\"1024\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/WhatsApp-Image-2022-04-07-at-6.27.13-PM5-842x1024.jpeg\" alt=\"Rumors of blackness: Kwesi Botchway corrects Colonial arts history\" class=\"wp-image-10032060779\"   title=\"Rumors of blackness: Kwesi Botchway corrects Colonial arts history\"\/><\/figure>\n<p>They are not in the foreground but are partly hidden behind white men and women. If they are there, then they are of minimal importance.<\/p>\n<p>With his portraits, he corrects the colonial history of the genre. He brings the past to the future. He makes it easy for black people to identify with his work. <\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"685\" height=\"1024\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/WhatsApp-Image-2022-04-07-at-6.27.13-PM6-685x1024.jpeg\" alt=\"Rumors of blackness: Kwesi Botchway corrects Colonial arts history\" class=\"wp-image-10032060792\"   title=\"Rumors of blackness: Kwesi Botchway corrects Colonial arts history\"\/><\/figure>\n<p>He implicitly urges museums and other art institutes to adapt their white collections. As one American critic put it succinctly:\u00a0<em>Representation matters.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Born in Nima in the 1990s, Kwesi is the founder of WorldFaze Art Studio an artist studio and residency space focusing on supporting young artists locally.<\/p>\n<p>                <!-- Post Tags --><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 900\"> Tags: \u00a0<\/span> <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.myjoyonline.com\/rumors-of-blackness-kwesi-botchway-corrects-colonial-arts-history\/\">Source<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ghanaian artist, Kwesi Botchway has once again blown the minds of the art world in Brussels a city in Belgium with his captivating portrait paintings. \u00a0 Kwesi the contemporary impressionist, as he likes to describe himself, dubbed this art exhibition \u2018Rumours of Blackness\u2019 and was held at Maruani Mercier Gallery. Kwesi said he had observed [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1165094,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[6805,7226,7227,7228,7229,2550,3600,7230],"class_list":{"0":"post-1165092","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-blackness","10":"tag-botchway","11":"tag-colonial","12":"tag-corrects","13":"tag-history","14":"tag-kwesi","15":"tag-rumors"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1165092","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1165092"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1165092\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1165092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1165092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1165092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}