Umber Brown Belt

Umber Brown Belt, 2020, Amoako Boafo, paper transfer and oil on canvas, 82 5/8 x 66 7/8 in., Courtesy the Collection of Marilyn & Larry Fields

AUDIO GUIDE TRANSCRIPT

NARRATOR:

Umber Brown Belt is a portrait of a woman from the artist's neighborhood. The belt of the title cinches her lavishly patterned floral blouse. For Boafo, his use of pattern is connected to the patterned fabrics common in his home city of Accra, the capital of Ghana.

AMOAKO BOAFO:

You cannot go a day without seeing anything pattern in Accra, anything colorful in Accra. So, I think, whenever I'm painting and I'm making those outfits with the print, I think of the patterns that I see daily,and the colors that I do come across. That's what I think of and how I interpret them.

NARRATOR:

Dress is important for Boafo in presenting his characters.

AMOAKO BOAFO:

The way you appear in certain spaces, people think of you the way you are dressed. I want my characters to pose with this kind of self-confidence, and in this painting, the character poses exactly what I want to achieve. She's present in the space.

NARRATOR:

This idea of presence is significant for Boafo.

AMOAKO BOAFO:

Everything is connected to my experience in certain spaces and locations where I find myself and how people look at you and how you feel. I think, you know, most of the spaces that I've been before have not been that inviting. Sometimes you are there but not really there. And the thing is that I want to change that kind of ideas with my paintings. I want to be present. I want people to feel my presence.

NARRATOR:

There's one final detail you may have noticed: the woman's hands are left unpainted.

AMOAKO BOAFO:

The energy that I want from the painting, if I'm already getting it, it doesn't make sense to add more because sometimes adding more: it's not necessarily good.

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