Ghanaian artist photographer Derrick Ofosu Boateng takes over the L'Atelier 21 art gallery in Casablanca for the very first time, from June 21 to July 19, 2024, for a solo exhibition entitled Moroccan Mosaic: A journey into Hueism.
This exhibition follows the artist's residency in Morocco, where he met many Gnaoua musicians, both in Essaouira and Casablanca A flourishing artist in West Africa, Derrick Ofosu Boateng is famous for his innovative artistic approach, “Hueism”, based on color therapy and visual poetry. Taken with an iPhone and digitally retouched, his brightly colored photographs create some of the most energetic works of this new generation of artists on the continent, who take a proud, uninhibited look at Africa.
In the text of the exhibition catalog, writer Olivier Rachet writes: “In the new series he is presenting today, ‘Moroccan Mosaic: A journey into Hueism’, the artist travelled to Essaouira to photograph Gnaoua musicians, former descendants of slaves whose confraternity music dedicated to ancestors and djinns echoes, for the photographer, the Akan proverbs that forged his culture”.
He adds: “If this photograph also appeals to us, beyond the cultural references to which it can be linked, it's also because of its playful freshness, which seems to allow the most incongruous, even surreal, comparisons. Analogies are sometimes woven between accessories that, on the face of it, are completely at odds with each other: for example, a watermelon whose shape is reminiscent of the red tarbouche worn by some of the characters, or oranges preserved in plastic bags filled with water whose circular appearance echoes footballs on the ground, or the crotales played by Gnaoua musicians, which the photographer compares with a series of apples. ”
Derrick Ofosu Boateng is considered one of the continent's most promising and creative photographic artists. Despite his young age, 26, he has already succeeded in imprinting a way of apprehending the world in which humor and enchantment seem to be the key words. Derrick Ofosu Boateng lives and works in Accra, Ghana.
