In his essay on photography entitled “The Decisive Moment,” Henri Cartier Bresson describes the intricacies of portraiture and the subject. He writes that the ideal portrait is a “true reflection of a person’s world – which is as much outside him as inside him.” We are just as much individuals as we are part of the larger whole. And while Bresson writes about photography, this lesson applies well to painting, where the artist can make far more deliberate choices as to what is reflected in the subject. The portraits of Ghanaian artist Amoako Boafo in exhibition at Roberts Projects, “Singular Duality: Me Can Make We,” express complexities both internal and external in a vibrant celebration of Blackness.

Black portraiture – which has been routinely excluded from the western art historical canon – is a subject that has been by some of the greatest contemporary artists, the likes of Kehinde Wiley and Amy Sherald. But what sets Boafo apart is the personal and impressionistic style of his subjects. The textured brushstrokes of the skin, mixing tan, blue, and black to create a complex color gradient, point to the intense care that Boafo wields. These direct signs of the artist illustrate the time and thought with which Boafo approaches his craft.

Contrasted with these apparent brush strokes are the striking fields of color that act as garb and backdrop for the subjects. The backdrops in particular are intentionally plain, with near shadows which cause the sitters to pop off the canvas and into the room. Combined with their larger than life stature, there is an immediacy to their presence – they exude an effortless confidence and ease, and above all comfortable with their self-expression.

But there is more than ease in these subjects. In Yellow Throw Pillow (2021), we see a seated figure resting their head on their folded hands, staring past the artist in a moment of reflection. The plaintive, wistful air surrounding the work is in contrast to the joy of Red Collar (2021) or the decisiveness of Purple Shadow (2021), demonstrating Boafo’s interest in capturing the wide-range of emotion, particularly for Black Americans in this past year.

Amoako Boafo’s work is simultaneously deeply personal, reflected in the care with which he paints his subjects, and illustrative of the wide range of human experience. Boafo offers ledgers of Black experience both inside and out, the individual and the whole.

Roberts Projects
5801 Washington Blvd.
Los Angeles, California 90232
Thru Nov. 6th, 2021