Amoako Boafo is a Ghanaian visual artist and painter based in Austria, Vienna. Born in 1984, he is regarded as a notable young voice in art of the African Diaspora through his new approaches to the shaping of Black forms, and their dispositions in a larger global context.
Boafo’s portraits are enticing in their lucidity. The brushstrokes are thick and gestural, the contours of the body almost soften into abstraction. Accentuated and elevated figures are often isolated on single color backgrounds, their gaze the focal point, to disrupt observations from canonical viewership. The poses are serene and the skin luminous, his tableau vivants place the figures at a higher recognition, both physically in regards to the size and spiritually in terms of their grandeur.
Boafo studied at the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna. In 2017 was awarded with the jury prize, Walter Koschatzky Art Prize. Widely collected by private and public collectors and institutions, most recently by the Leopold Museum, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Marieluise Hessel Collection, Hessel Museum of Art, Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, The Albertina Museum Vienna, and the Rubell Museum.
The 37-year-old artist is globally recognized with laurels to his decoration. He won the 2019 STRABAG Art Award International.
