'I want my artwork to create a connection with people, to be a symbol for everyone to relate to. No matter what you are going through, or where you live, I want my art to help people think and reflect on their inner lives and how it relates to the wider world.' —Kojo Marfo
Kojo Marfo is a Ghanaian painter based in London whose figurative work explores hybridity and a version of humanity that exists at the intersection of different binary worlds: past and present, Africa and Europe, whiteness and blackness, male and female.
This painting, Midas, is an exemplar work of his signature style. Large eyes, floral decoration, earrings and a mask-like face that is both black and white – evoking the skin condition of vitiligo – are characteristics of Marfo’s paintings, which aim to connect the viewer with a universal humanity.
Marfo’s references are eclectic, and he draws from art history, greek mythology, his own biography, and both African and European traditions of dressing to draw connections between time and place. The title, Midas, refers to King Midas, the famous figure in greek mythology who turned everything he touched to gold, while the figure large, swelling necklace is reminiscent of elongated golden chokers or neck and shoulder garments worn on the African continent. Fernand Léger and Pablo Picasso are further references, whose cubist faces were inspired by ‘primitivist’ masks that hold particular resonance for Marfo for their ability to evoke gods and ancestral spirits.