COMA is pleased to present a solo exhibition by Ghanaian artist Otis Kwame Kye Quaicoe (b.1988, Accra, Ghana; based in Portland, OR), titled, Fragments of History, on view Friday 30 August - 28 September. This is the artist's first solo presentation with the gallery and taking place at 2/27-39 Abercrombie Street, NSW, 2008.
In this new series of paintings, the artist explores the remnants of colonisation in his hometown of Accra, Ghana. The portraits are built up using thick layers of oil paint, often incorporating found objects and patterned collage. References to colonial era uniforms and architecture slowly reveal fragments of histories shared across cultures.
Alongside these works, Quaicoe presents a small group of paintings that draw inspiration from a recent research trip to Australia. During these travels he met with Dennis Golding, a prominent Indigenous artist of the Kamilaroi/Gamilaraay language group, and together they began a dialogue around shared perspectives on struggles under a colonial history, geographically distant yet deeply similar. Each portrait becomes a symbol of the reclamation of cultural identity, embracing the idea of origin and personal narrative as it relates to race dynamics.
For Quaicoe these conversations unearthed a perspective previously unexplored. Speaking with Indigenous Australians has opened up Quaicoe’s practice to new narratives and differing experiences of Blackness. The nature of life under colonial rule and its lasting effects are evident across cultures, although in these paintings both differences and similarities are visible. This is an examination of experiences that feel analogous to each other and then at any moment may veer off in unexpected directions.
In Man in Blue I, Man in Blue II and Men in Blue, Ghanaian police officers wear bright blue uniforms, tailored, with lapels adorning their shoulders. These subjects stand proud and patriotic in their colonial dress – draped in perfectly fitted finery. In these paintings Quaicoe has adorned the figure’s helmets with bright colourful feathers as a nod to traditional African culture. This merging of fashion, the British inspired colonial police uniform and the colourful African feather depicts what Quaicoe describes as the merging of two cultures. In Ghana remnants of British colonisation have seeped their way into everyday life, slipping into the status quo.
These figures are the artist’s way of engaging in honest and nuanced conversation around colonisation and what it is like to live in a contemporary society where remnants of British rule and conquest are palpable. Man in Blue I, Man in Blue II and Men in Blue, the Ghanaian police officers, feel like a celebration of contemporary African culture and survival, they are bright and vivacious, direct and bold.
These particular pieces sit in opposition with other portraits in Fragments of History, Indigenous Australians who appear more defiant and resistant with crossed arms and firm stances. It was through this new dialogue between the artist and Indigenous Australians that Quaicoe was made aware of the extent of existing resistance to colonial structures and standards in Australia by the traditional owners of the land. To the artist, the melding of Ghanaian and British culture has become a way of life, and opposed to defiance this consolidation has become co-opted and the norm.
Gamil Means No, a portrait of Kamilaroi/Gamilaraay artist, curator and collaborator Dennis Golding, is a more overt and direct reference to acts of defiance. On his t-shirt the phrase “Gamil Means No” references the Gomeroi community’s protest against the proposed Narabbi gas project. ‘Gamil’, translating to ‘No’ in Gamilaraay, the spoken language of the Gomeroi people. Fragments of History as a whole is a reflection of this phrase - acts of resistance against colonial structures and the ramifications of those structures on contemporary society.
It is through these conversations and access to parallel histories that Quaicoe is able to hold up a mirror to his own views on colonisation and look deeper at his own, and his countries’, cultural history. Looking at how the world as a whole fights for identity and the act of retaining a sense of purpose through past colonial rule in countries that are becoming increasingly multicultural is of great importance to the artist. Through this analysis, the Black experience is reinforced and grounded and Black perspectives are maintained.
Perhaps the most significant part of Quaicoe’s practice is his ability to pull a thread between artist, subject and viewer – tugging delicately at the inner corners of each, until they are all woven into the same story. As the title of the show suggests, each perspective and story only makes up a small fraction of a much larger history, it is when these perspectives are shared and intertwined we are able to more wholly understand their gravity and reach.
