Body Politić

I paint from travel documents from Ghana’s archives, navigating and selecting a particular time in history to discuss certain topics.

Within my paintings, I have a dialogue about inter-African migration today, in the early 1950’s (before Ghana’s independence from the British) and post independence whilst exploring the spaces migrants are held in (immigration offices, detention centres, slave auction houses etc.) The passport or any travel document, is a tool of identification but also a constraint because the exclusivity of certain passports, citizenships and visa’s trigger alienation. The drastic innovation of passports to intensify security, surveillance and defense, commands the notion of identity and authenticity. I have this dialogue within my paintings by using stamps and pages within travel documents, modifying some of the information to play around the notion of authenticity. The multiplicity of materials, techniques and medium used within my work develops the context and enables me use different avenues to explore painting without any boundaries. By integrating portraiture with transfers, prints and assemblage, my paintings take on different characters, which mirror the life of an expatriate, the expatriate adapts, loses and learns different culture within the ‘new’ space that is being occupied.

BODY POLITIĆ. // 97