AMOAKO BOAFO (B. 1984)

Alive with vivid colour and feeling, these two Untitled works (2018), lots 1 and 6, are bold, intimate examples of Amoako Boafo’s distinctive portrait practice. Framing them in headshot close-up, the artist has modelled his subjects’ skin with sensitive, nuanced strokes of his fingertips, creating a tactile depth of texture that is charged with life. The men’s faces stand in richly expressive contrast to the sharp, flat hues of their clothing and the bright planes of colour behind them.

The Ghana-born Boafo counts Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Kerry James Marshall, Jordan Casteel and Kehinde Wiley among his influences. His portraits’ incandescent, graphic qualities have also earned him comparisons to Egon Schiele – since 2014, Boafo has lived and worked in the Expressionist’s hometown of Vienna, Austria. His works have recently joined Schiele’s in the collection of Vienna’s Albertina Museum, and have also been acquired by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York and the Rubell Museum, Miami, among others.

Boafo’s fluid strokes and vital colours embody the dissolving of stereotypes that lies at the heart of his approach. The regal, elegant men depicted in the present two paintings are vitally present, but they are far from rigid: Boafo’s lucid technique conveys the dynamism of authentic, individual life, and rejoices freely in the warmth of human connection. As he has put it, ‘the primary idea of my practice is representation, documenting, celebrating and showing new ways to approach blackness’ (A. Boafo, quoted in V. L. Valentine, ‘Amoako Boafo is Latest Young Black Artist to Make Major Auction Debut’, Culture Type, 11 February 2020).