Amoako Boafo


Thomas Amoako Boafo, known as Amoako Boafo, is a Ghanaian painter and visual artist.

Early life and education

Boafo was born and raised in Osu, in the Greater Accra Region of Ghana. He attended the Ghanatta College of Art and Design in Accra, and later continued his education at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna in Austria.

Career

Boafo's portraits focus on posture, clothing, and the stroke of skin which he accentuates with the finger painting technique.
In 2019, Boafo participated in a residency at the new Rubell Museum in Miami, Florida, and in 2020 collaborated with Dior for their Spring/Summer 2021 Men Collection.
His work Suborbital Tryptych, consisting of three portraits of himself, his mother, and a friend's mother, was printed on the top of the crew capsule of a New Shepard rocket that performed an unmanned suborbital launch on August 26, 2021, reaching outer space with an apogee of 106 km. On 26 May 2022, his debut U.S. exhibit, Soul of Black Folks, opened at Contemporary Art Museum Houston and later traveled to the Denver Art Museum in 2023.

Collections

Boafo's work is in private and public collections, most recently in the Blenheim Art Foundation, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Hirshhorn Museum, Rubell Museum, Marieluise Hessel Collection, the Aishti Foundation, the CCS Bard College Hessel Museum of Art, the Pizzuti Collection of Columbus Museum of Art, Colección Solo and the Albertina Museum in Vienna.

Exhibitions

Group exhibitions:
Solo exhibitions:
  • 2024. Proper Love, Belvedere Museum,.
  • 2025. I Do Not Come to You by Chance, Gagosian Gallery.

    Recognition

  • 2017 – Jury prize, Walter Koschatzky Art Prize
  • 2019 – STRABAG Art award International

    Art market

Boafo is represented by Mariane Ibrahim Gallery in Chicago and Roberts Projects in Los Angeles. In 2021, his Hands Up sold for HKD 26.7 million at Christie's in Hong Kong.