Kojo Marfo (b. 1980) is a Ghanaian-born painter based in London who grew up among traditional Akan sculptors and carvers and developed largely as a self-taught artist. He is represented by JD Malat Gallery in London, and in 2022 his work was shown at the Vytautas Kasiulis Art Museum in Vilnius. His brightly coloured, stylised acrylic figures merge Akan carving iconography with Cubism, Picasso, Bacon and graffiti, addressing spirituality, identity and womanhood.
Kojo Marfo (b. 1980, Kwahu Tafo, Ghana) is a Ghanaian-born painter based in London. He grew up surrounded by traditional Akan sculptors and carvers, and as a child moved to Accra to live with his grandmother. After art courses at the University of Ghana and a period in New York, he moved to London in the early 2000s and briefly enrolled at Central Saint Martins before choosing to develop as a largely self-taught artist. Marfo paints mainly in acrylic, combining the iconography of Akan carvings with influences from Western modernism, including Cubism, Picasso and Bacon, as well as New York graffiti culture. His brightly coloured, stylised figures address spirituality, identity, womanhood and social injustice, which he connects with “Akan culture and my struggles living in the West”. He is represented by JD Malat Gallery in London, where his solo exhibitions have included “Dreaming of Identity” (2021) and “Gatekeepers of Heritage” (2022). His work has also been shown at international fairs such as Contemporary Istanbul and ZONAMACO. In 2022 his painting “The Missing Girl and the Prince” (2018) was included in the exhibition “Contemporary African Art: Dreams and Realities of Identity” at the Vytautas Kasiulis Art Museum of the Lithuanian National Museum of Art in Vilnius. This work, painted in acrylic on cardboard, is offered by TUMO Gallery together with the canvas “Stranger” (2022).
