Gideon Appah

Drawing inspiration from scenes of everyday life in Ghana, as well as personal memories, dreams, and family histories, Appah creates compositions that dissolve divisions between the tangible and the imagined while engaging questions of identity, freedom, and form. Though his paintings are informed by real places and people, they can appear more mythological than representative, employing elements of Fauvism and Surrealism that complicate any clear narrative reading. Oneiric and reflective, his works elevate the simple act of gathering to the realm of collective memory, in which it takes on new and unexpected significance.

The slippage of time across the Swimmers and Surfers canvases as they move from day to night, dusk to dawn, enhances their dream-like mood. In these works, Appah pursues a wider exploration of color to capture different times of day and conditions of light, applying a range of blues before layering on a more expansive palette with touches of purple, yellow, orange, and highlights of white. The overall effect is complex and textured, with brighter hues toned down by the underlying blues to create a muted atmosphere. Through this process, Appah starts with the shadow of the subject—its outline and memory—before allowing it to fully emerge.

Appah first visited Busua Beach in 2022 and has returned several times since. In early 2025, he created the short film Beyond the Shadows, which will also feature in the exhibition at Pace. Directed by Chris Baiden with a voiceover poem written and performed by Poetra Asantewa, the film explores the lifestyle of the surfers and swimmers in the area, capturing images of men and women in the ocean or looking out from the shore. Many subjects in Appah’s paintings can be traced back to the real people in this film and in reference photographs, with recognizable faces often repeating across works. Their enigmatic expressions invite viewers to experience the languid fluidity of their surroundings.

In addition to his time at Busua Beach and Kokrobite, Appah references found materials like posters, prints, and photographs to create scenes that exist outside of a single time or place. Drawing on images from African popular culture—including post-colonial Ghanaian cinema and historical newspaper clippings—and transforming them with his striking use of depth, color, and line, Appah paints a world that is at once familiar and new. A selection of his reference materials, including movie stills, clippings from archival local Ghanaian newspapers, and photographs will be included in the presentation at Pace.

Appah’s work was recently included in the group show Corps et âmes at the Bourse de Commerce in Paris, which ran from May through August 2025. He will also participate in the forthcoming exhibition Ibrahim Mahama: The Harvest Season at the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain in Paris in fall 2026 alongside Dorothy Akpene Amenuke, James Barnor, le Cercle d’art des travailleurs des plantations congolaises (CATPC), Courage Dzidula Kpodo with Postbox Ghana, Zohra Opoku, Tjaša Rener, and Feda Wardak. Each artist in The Harvest Season was invited by Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama, who studied at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in Ghana at the same time as Appah.