Born in 1990, Cornelius Annor has burst onto the contemporary art scene with his vibrant figurative paintings of everyday life in Ghana. Annor grew up in Accra and showed a...
Born in 1990, Cornelius Annor has burst onto the contemporary art scene with his vibrant figurative paintings of everyday life in Ghana. Annor grew up in Accra and showed a keen interest in artmaking from a young age. Encouraged by his father, who was a sculptor, he pursued his passion for painting and undertook training at the Ghanatta College of Art and Design, Accra. Now working between Accra and Brussels, Annor draws upon his personal history to create vibrant studies of Ghanian communities. He explains that his commitment to depicting the lives of everyday subjects is '[b]ecause most of the positive images of black people focus on the African-American story[.] I would like what I am creating right now to depict positive imagery of Africa and Ghana. I want people to change their view about our beautiful continent'.Day Break depicts a market scene in Ghana. Women wearing wide-brimmed straw hats sit in a row by the side of a road with baskets laden with piles of fish. The women wear dresses made from the vibrantly colored wax print fabrics commonplace in Ghana. Inspired by the work of the British-Nigerian artist Yinka Shonibare (b. 1962) who clothes his sculptural figures in brightly colored Nigerian textiles, Annor translates Ghanaian wax print fabrics into his paintings to connect his painterly practice with his West African heritage. Annor has exhibited his paintings widely in West Africa and the United States. Earlier in 2022, he held a solo show at Maruani Mercier in Knokke, Belgium. Titled Memories We Share, the exhibition presented painted snapshots of domestic life in Ghana which used the artist's family photographs as source material. Annor's work has recently been acquired by the Norton Museum of Art, Florida and the Brooklyn Museum, New York.