20 minutes with the Prof. By Miranda Larbi
So why and when did you set up the gallery?
The Artists’ Alliance was actually born in Nungua - further down the coast towards Tema, in 1993. It turned out that setting up at Nungua was a mistake because the traffic was so terrible that we weren’t getting the visitors - people called us to say ‘look we’re sorry but we’re stuck in a jam so we’re not going to make this appointment’. We knew we had to move more central - so we ended up at Labardi.
Whilst you were teaching?
Yes, while I was teaching. We were preparing for my retirement (when I say we, I mean myself and my wife) and we knew that at 60, I wasn’t going to go around begging for another contract, I felt that OK, I’ve got my freedom - I need to do something different. We thought that seeing as I’m a painter and I paint, the best thing to do would be to open an art gallery. But there weren’t any decent galleries in Ghana then…so we built one!
And who is the AA’s main client base here in Accra?
We really have two main groups - business companies and diplomatic circles. Diplomats get visitors all the time from different countries and when they do, they want to take them somewhere where they can explore the country’s culture - and this is the best place to do it. Big business like Cosmos and Tullow as well as various banks and airlines come to kit out their offices with our art. The individuals who work for these international companies also come come to dress up their rented apartments and houses. That means that our artists enjoy international exposure from the comfort of their local gallery. We feed on the changing nature of these international businesses - when one director leaves, another one flies in and when they go back home, they take their art with them.
In what way is the gallery an alliance?
Well the original idea was to create a kind of collaborative co-op - I never thought I’d have to drum up the money and run things myself. I wanted the artists to come together to build an art gallery and sell their work through it. We called the initial group of artists to Kumasi and they bought the idea and everyone was enthusiastic about chipping in. But they left the nitty gritty, the legalities and mundane stuff to me and my wife. The artists then asked me, because I came from Accra, to find them a building and my brother found the Nungua site for us. We came and told everyone that we had found a place but nobody came down. We waited for almost a year and then we realised that enthusiasm wasn’t real, it wasn’t practical. That’s the problem with collaborative projects - you have to rely on other people. I’d spent a lot of money on setting this place up and I wasn’t prepare to let it all go to waste. Now I’m in control and I can decide how things are run, what money to spend on what, which artists to accept etc, without any external aggravation. It’s better this way.
And what’s your wife’s role now in the gallery?
Well she’s the manager really - I’m just supposed to be an artist!
If your artists didn’t rely on the gallery to sell their work, what kind of profits do you think they’d be able to make working alone?
Well they current take 65% from their sales here at the AA. Apart from anything else, selling one-on-one is a lot of hassle and a lot of time wasting for artists. Can you imagine running around people’s houses and buildings with your paintings? I wouldn’t dare do it. We take a massive load off the artist - you do your painting, we’ll sell it for you. We do more than half of the work. I think it’s pretty easy standing there in front of a canvas - if you’re creative; selling is another thing entirely. You’ve got to show the work at its best, it’s got to be housed in an environment that would enhance the paintings. Creating that space alone is a problem.
Would you say that the gallery has enhanced the appreciation of art for Ghanaians? Do you get many locals coming in?
We get some but not many. What I’m glad about is that now we’ve got students and schools visiting and we give them talks and tours - so I believe that that is helping to close the gap or misunderstanding about art in this country. Our school children are the future, after all.
Nigerians for example are avid art investors
Yes well…I think they have a certain mentality that says if X has an Ablade Glover, I must have one too - I’m not sure how much it’s got to do with actual artistic appreciation. And remember too that there are millions of Nigerians - Ghana is relatively small and there’s a lot of very rich people there.
And do you think that the Artists’ Alliance could have a practical future in artistic production - maybe an art school?
Yes maybe. Not an artists’ colony but a kind of school of thought where artists can come and talk together or work here. We did something similar a while ago, when we got artists to come and set up their studios in the galleries. Our best customers came to observe and talk with the artists; it was fantastic to bring patron and artist together in such an intimate environment.
What is the most popular medium that you find most of your artists use?
Acyclic - not oil. It’s cheaper and it dries faster; many of these artists are working quickly and I don’t think some of my young artists have the patience to hang around waiting for stuff to dry. Saying that, I was raised in oil and would never touch anything else.
So on to your own work then. Have your stints abroad had much of an effect on your paintings?
My service in the UK did influence my work but I’m currently in the process of trying to phase myself out of it. I haven’t planned to break away from my British influences but I’m seeing my work becoming more colourful; when I was in London, I couldn’t squeeze the colour out of a tube. I had to mix and I always went for the browns, greys, dark colours - toned down palettes. Now I use colour straight from the tube, with lots of yellows and reds. My tutors were always saying that those colours were too strong but that’s because that was their culture - not mine.
Your subjects seem to reappear time and time again, almost in series-form…
I don’t know if I pick the subjects or maybe the subjects pick me…
And do you start off with the intention of creating a series?
No. When a subject occurs to me, I paint it and every canvas is a lesson. When a canvas is finished I might be able to see more things that could have been done. That leaves me with two options - either I can destroy everything I’ve just done and start working back into the painting or I can leave my work as it is and go onto a fresh canvas and carry out these further developments. I’d rather choose the latter. So it looks like series but for me it’s a steady period. One canvas teaches me a lot and I then carry that learning to another canvas and another and another until I’ve exhausted the subject, until there’s nothing more to study. Sometimes I come back to pieces after years because I suddenly have a moment of clarity where I can see more potential. I’m currently working on a canvas that I finished five years ago for example - and I’m seeing big possibilities. No subject remains off limits for ever.
On that subject then, how to think your work has developed over the course of your career?
Well, I think I’m more courageous - using colour, using the palette knife rather than brushes…I used to be very precise and now I almost throw the paint on the canvas. Maybe courageous isn’t the right word but more I definitely more daring, more energetic.
So what’s the next step for you and for the gallery?
I hope the gallery will progress and that it will continue when I’m no longer here. Presently, my painting supports the gallery. I’m very positive about the future - there’s work to be done but it’s looking good.
