Hannah Traore Gallery is proud to present a solo exhibition of recent work by the Ghanaian-British artist Kesewa Aboah for The Armory Show. Using the human body as a tool for mark making, Aboah employs traditional materials for painting and printmaking to explore unconventional methods of self-imaging. By approaching art materials with greater invention than their intended purpose, the artist is able to draw profound connections between the unique qualities of paper, oil, pigment, thread, metal, and wood, and the ephemeral nature of identity, existence, and memory.
In some of her magnesium works, Aboah makes impressions of her fingerprints and body, which she then etches into silver sheets—plates designed in the twentieth century for letterpress printing. With each ritual press of her fingertip, she transforms her existential obsessions into expressive patterns. As if placing each gesture into the compartment of a treasure chest or memory box, the cold, manufactured metal is framed by the warm, grained wood. In certain moments, Aboah’s works are complimentary between form and concept—the image bites into the magnesium like the fingerprint carves into the hand. In other details, Aboah welcomes the contradictions between a medium’s historical use and her intuitive application: the printmaker’s plate—used for the commercial reproduction of identical images—serves as a permanent document of her singular physique.
The most ambitious work in the presentation, Aboah’s Self Portrait: KA-18.07.26 consists of fifteen magnesium plates, across which she stamps her limbs over and over—echoing her walnut-oil tumbles on paper. The only completely unpolished and unsealed surface of her metal casts, in this work, she celebrates how magnesium, like a person, can be unpredictable: reactive, sensitive, and malleable. Rather than offer a clear reflection or complete story, her self portrait refracts a glowing, dissipated light as if it were a coat of arms protecting her interior emotions, sensations, and vulnerabilities.
Hannah Traore Gallery is proud to present a solo exhibition of recent work by the Ghanaian-British artist Kesewa Aboah for The Armory Show. Using the human body as a tool for mark making, Aboah employs traditional materials for painting and printmaking to explore unconventional methods of self-imaging. By approaching art materials with greater invention than their intended purpose, the artist is able to draw profound connections between the unique qualities of paper, oil, pigment, thread, metal, and wood, and the ephemeral nature of identity, existence, and memory.
In some of her magnesium works, Aboah makes impressions of her fingerprints and body, which she then etches into silver sheets—plates designed in the twentieth century for letterpress printing. With each ritual press of her fingertip, she transforms her existential obsessions into expressive patterns. As if placing each gesture into the compartment of a treasure chest or memory box, the cold, manufactured metal is framed by the warm, grained wood. In certain moments, Aboah’s works are complimentary between form and concept—the image bites into the magnesium like the fingerprint carves into the hand. In other details, Aboah welcomes the contradictions between a medium’s historical use and her intuitive application: the printmaker’s plate—used for the commercial reproduction of identical images—serves as a permanent document of her singular physique.
The most ambitious work in the presentation, Aboah’s Self Portrait: KA-18.07.26 consists of fifteen magnesium plates, across which she stamps her limbs over and over—echoing her walnut-oil tumbles on paper. The only completely unpolished and unsealed surface of her metal casts, in this work, she celebrates how magnesium, like a person, can be unpredictable: reactive, sensitive, and malleable. Rather than offer a clear reflection or complete story, her self portrait refracts a glowing, dissipated light as if it were a coat of arms protecting her interior emotions, sensations, and vulnerabilities.
