Isshaq Ismail (b. 1989) is a Ghanaian painter based in Accra who graduated from the Ghanatta College of Art and Design in 2012. He was shortlisted for the Kuenyehia Prize for Contemporary Art in 2015 and 2016, and in 2022 Gallery 1957 in Accra held his solo show “Beauty Behind the Madness”. Calling his method “infantile semi-abstraction”, he paints distorted heads and faces in thick impasto, questioning ideals of beauty.
Isshaq Ismail (b. 1989, Accra, Ghana) is a Ghanaian painter who lives and works in Accra. He graduated in painting from the Ghanatta College of Art and Design in Accra in 2012. Ismail is known for vibrant, semi-abstract figurative paintings built around exaggerated, distorted faces and heads. He describes his approach as “infantile semi-abstraction”, a deliberately childlike yet technically and conceptually considered way of working with thick, gestural brushstrokes and sculptural impasto. His paintings examine how social, cultural and political conditions shape identity, questioning canonical ideas of beauty and touching on consumerism, racism and patriarchy as well as desire, resilience and hope. He was shortlisted for the Kuenyehia Prize for Contemporary Art in 2015 and 2016, was among the top 100 finalists of the Barclays L’Atelier competition in Johannesburg (2016), and was shortlisted for the GUBA USA Influential Artist Award (2019). His solo exhibition “Beauty Behind the Madness” was held at Gallery 1957 in Accra in 2022, and his work has been shown in Ghana, New York, Miami, London, Dubai and Cape Town, including at 1-54 London (2022). The painting “Head 10” (2021), acrylic on canvas, offered by TUMO Gallery, belongs to his “Head” series of expressive, fractured portraits, and was previously handled by Maddox Gallery.
