Gideon Appah

Gideon Appah (b. 1987) is an artist based in Accra. Appah draws on childhood memories and dreams, as well as West African landscapes and popular culture for his dazzling, bold, and jewel-toned paintings. As a child, his first medium was charcoal, which his grandmother used to cook meals at home. His early works are an ode to his hometown of Accra, the capital of Ghana, and incorporate images associated with daily life such as lottery numbers and other symbols present in the social and economic fabric of the city. Appah’s work investigates his childhood as well as local mythologies, ethereal landscapes, rivers, domestic interiors, and recurring figures both imagined and known, such as his grandmother and brother. 

Appah often paints in tones of royal blue, crimson, dark orange, and white over found and collaged posters, prints, photographs, and film stills, many of these centering on occupations his family members have held within their community such as barber and tailor shops. Mixing photographic images with paint, Appah employs a process of priming the canvas and sketching the composition before transferring prints from paper onto the canvas using a mixture of glue and water. After the canvas dries, he carves out the images, making them visible before applying paint. Appah creates dream-like worlds through a fauvist lens, examining personal and homeland histories such as Ghanaian postcolonial cinema, leisure culture, and nightlife, using newspaper clippings from the 1950s through the 80s as source material.

Appah holds a BFA from Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Ghana (2012). 

Solo exhibitions include ‘How to Say Sorry in a Thousand Lights’, Pace Gallery, London (2023); ‘More Luck’, Mitchell Innes and Nash, New York (2022); ‘Gideon Appah: Forgotten, Nudes, Landscapes’, Institute for Contemporary Art at University of Commonwealth Virginia, Richmond (2022); ‘Blue Boys Blues’, Mitchell Innis and Nash, New York (2020); ‘Love Letters’, Gallery 1957, Accra (2019); ‘In Pokua's Place’, Nubuke Foundation, Accra (2017); ‘Between a life and its dream’, ABSA Gallery, Johannesburg (2017); ‘Sensation’, Goethe Institute, Accra (2013). 

Appah’s work has been featured in group exhibitions at Frieze Seoul with Gallery 1957, Seoul (2023); Gallery 1957, Accra (2023, 2022); Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa, Cape Town (2023); Christie’s, Dubai (2021); Venus Over Manhattan, New York (2021) UTA Artist Space, Los Angeles (2021); Gallery 1957, London (2021); Frieze New York with Mitchell Innis & Nash, New York (2020); Gallery 1957, Accra (2019); Estancia FEMSA-Casa Estudio Luis Barragán, Mexico City (2019); Bode Projects, Hamburg (2018); Lars Kristian Bode Gallery, Hamburg (2017); Ghana Science Museum, Accra (2017); Alternative Facts, The Road Gallery, New York (2017);DFContemporary Gallery, Capetown (2016); Gallery2, Johannesburg (2016); Absa Gallery, Johannesburg (2015); Nubuke Foundation, Accra (2014); KNUST Museum, Kumasi (2012).

Appah’s work is held in the collections of The Absa Museum, Johannesburg; Royal Ontario Museum of Art, Toronto; Musée d’Art Contemporain Africain Al Maaden, Marrakesh.