Albert Nii Nortey Dowuona
Albert Nii Nortey Dowuona is a Ghanaian artist exploring themes of social and personal identity. His colourful works utilise found materials that have their own past: wax textiles, newspapers and more. By using these materials rich in history, the artist is able to construct new narratives.
If you are interested in Petros’ work, please visit his website, instagram or contact him at alniinod@gmail.com.
About:
Albert Nii Nortey Dowuona is a Ghanaian artist who explores themes of social and personal identity in his incredibly unique, highly intimate works. The principal influence on his practice are his experiences with acceptance and rejection. His past struggles inspire his ongoing practice.
Materials are important to the artist and drive his practice. The artist utilises all drawing and painting mediums, from oil and acrylics to pastels, graphite and charcoal. His diverse range of materials allows him to create a variety of different effects and explore the limits painting as an approach.
Untitled, 2019, assembled wax fabric glued on canvas, 35 x 45 in.
Importantly, the artist utilises materials that he believes possess a voice or past history. As a young artist at university, Albert began exploring the possibilities of using newspapers and African wax textiles to investigate his own family lineage, as well as larger ideas of social identity. For Albert, these materials possessed a personality and distinct narrative. The newspapers and African wax textiles represented something; they had a past life where they had been used, read and valued. These materials gave depth to his work, as the artist began to explore what the materials represented, how they were used, who used it, and what they could be saying.
His most recent works explore the idea of a palimpsest – a layered and recycled creation. These works continue to investigate the same themes of identity the artist has been exploring since 2016. In these works, Albert layers African wax print fabrics and lottery newspapers, overlapping and juxtaposing them. When dried, Albert then forcefully rips off the newspapers, revealing the designs of the fabric underneath. The process is unpredictable and spontaneous, and some pieces of the newspapers remain behind. The final result is an amalgamation of the two materials.
Though the two materials have different properties and contexts, the artist has forced them together to occupy the same space. Albert says he is using these multi-layered pieces to examine his own matrilineal and patrilineal heritage.
Albert has already made waves in the art world, with his work ‘Loving Memory’ being featured in Forbes Magazine and multiple prestigious exhibitions.
Past Exhibitions:
• 2019 – (Group Exhibition) – EVOLUTION OF SCIENCE EXHIBITION, GHSCIENTIFIC, MUSEUM OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, ACCRA
• 2019 – (Group Exhibition) – YBG ECO ARTS FESTIVAL, MUSEUM OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, ACCRA
• 2011 – (Group) – “the KNUST Muse_um is A_muse_um”, KNUST, Kumasi – Ghana.
• 2010 – (End of Year Group Show) – “Time + Space [Technology] = Event”, Final year Show, KNUST, Kumasi – Ghana.
