“I waged war into the spiritual kingdom. On my return, I became positively sound, and sleepy. The most interesting part of it was that it lasted only 17 minutes. On the soil of Ghana, I had a dream. When I woke up, I found myself permanently in Gagahuli, Ouida, in the Republic of Benin.
This is how art is for me. It is a constant battle between the material and the spiritual. To be an artist doesn't just mean painting, playing music, sculpting or even acting, it also means opening up to such ideas as preserving and developing one's spiritual cultural heritage into Science and Technology.
My work is generally about love and affection; about simple everyday situations like relationships, music, spirituality and being at peace with one’s self and the world at large. Some people have said that my work has characteristics that can be likened to a European or American’s interpretation of African life. Some would say it is the work of an African, interpreting the contemporary concerns of my age. Yet others will also say my work is universal. I feel very universal.
I am always happy as an artist. Art makes me see both in the physical and the spiritual.
The purpose of art then is about brightening the corner where you are. The purpose of art is to be sound in mind, body and soul. It's not about what others are doing or what someone decided. Art does not depend on someone prescribing a mainstream system. Art is freedom.”
Kofi Agorsor
By the mid-1980s, Kofi Gammamirosror Agorsor's career had begun in the bustling town of Akatsi in the Volta Region of Ghana. In the absence of computers, the boy would begin a sign-writing career, illustrating designs on quiosks, placards, school walls, shrines, and churches, all the while painting and sculpting by nightfall.
With his father being a building and road constructor, Kofi Agorsor developed a natural interest in the field. From a young age, he began drawing plans and later studied Building and Construction at Akatsi Experimental Junior High School, which ignited his passion for architecture. The acclaimed painter, sculptor, and musician would migrate to Accra and expand his artistic practice to a whole new level. There, he attended Ghanatta College of Art in Accra for a year, and then left for Ankle College of Art (still in Accra) in 1989, where he completed in 1992.
However, a few years after his arrival, the advent of computers in 1995 would bring with it a whirlwind of change that would alter the cultural sphere forever and arrest what was once a generous flow of employment for him and his contemporaries. While many sign writers lamented the loss of their jobs to mere machines, Agorsor's works would continue to retain the spirit of those 20th-century Ghanaian manual graphics. It is from this background that the following attitudes toward his work would emerge: precision, adaptability, flexibility, and versatility.
With this niche, he captures his very own vision and experience of the predominantly feminine spirit that would unfold to interact with the interior architecture of hotel lobbies, galleries, and intimate spaces. The capture of that feminine energy is integral to Agorsor's practice.
In his paintings, Agorsor uses pulsating colors that become an interpretation of the sensations and lived experiences of Africans and the world at large. His subject matter borders on the generic but is often rendered in a buoyant, semi-abstract, and witty mannerism. His canvases are sometimes sparsely populated, often with solitary figures in sensuous poses, such as two lovers enjoying each other’s company. Some canvases, on the other hand, may be densely populated, inhabited by crowds of market women or glitterati at events. Others, too, may be animated with splashes, drips, and flows of paint that intertwine to become forests or mazes of enchantment. His sculptures, too, are embodiments of spontaneous orderliness and similar aesthetics found in his paintings.
In addition to being an acclaimed painter and sculptor, Agorsor is an instrumentalist, composer, songwriter, and founder of the Afro-World Band. Thrumming with rhythms that seamlessly shift between soul, funk, jazz, and Afrobeat into a self-styled genre called ‘afroworld,’ the Agorsor Band is a multi-disciplinary artistic group from Ghana. At its center is Nyornuwofia Agorsor, the vivacious lead vocalist, dancer, composer, songwriter, instrumentalist, and visual artist. Rooted in indigenous African knowledge systems, the band's politics are a communally-conscious act of liberation. Unapologetically composed of instruments native to Africa, their music, like their art, becomes an act of radical resistance and decolonization, challenging certain popularly held views of these indigenous instruments as either inferior or sidelined as conveniently exotic or touristic.
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