▲ Will You Ever be Here Again?, Oil and acrylic on canvas, 240x220cm, 2023 ⓒ Gideon Appah, Pace Gallery

Gideon Appah who is from Accra, Ghana's solo exhibition, 'The Play of Thought' will be held at the Pace Gallery in Seoul.

The exhibition is the artist's first solo exhibition in Asia and the second since his exclusive contract with Pace Gallery in 2022.

▲ Starlite, Oil and acrylic on canvas, 80x60cm, 2023 ⓒ Gideon Appah, Pace Gallery

Gideon is a Ghanaian artist born in 1987, who creates portraits, drawings, and mixed media works inspired by his memory, Ghanaian history, and popular culture.

His works are housed in major art galleries around the world, including the 1-54 Contemporary American Art Fair in New York, and were nominated for the Kuenyehia Art Prize in 2016 and the Henrik Grohs Art Award in 2022.

▲ Nudes on the Coast, Oil and acrylic on canvas, 120x100cm, 2024 ⓒ Gideon Appah, Pace Gallery

He is well-known for his intense figure paintings reminiscent of the color of jewels. He expresses a utopian landscape in his paintings that intuitively depicts his inner self through the outside.

He mainly describes nude and seminude figures reinterpreted with his imagination in a dreamlike landscape set on the coast. He infinitely unfolds the flat and fascinating world built using the Impasto technique.

▲ The installation of the exhibition ⓒ Gideon Appah, Pace Gallery

He paints a landscape with interactions between lines, colors, light, and shades on a vast canvas and depicts lifelike-sized figures. He creates a fluid composition through a thick layer of paint, which maximizes effectiveness by exposing a portion of the underlay.

He was inspired by a vast array of visual materials, including films and documentaries, produced since Ghana's independence in 1957, and imbued his work with cinematic and stage characteristics.

The exhibition will be held at The Pace Gallery Seoul in Itaewon, Seoul, until April 27.

▲ The installation of the exhibition ⓒ Gideon Appah, Pace Gallery

Sayart / Maria Kim, sayart2022@gmail.com