1966–present
Ben Agbee
Ben Agbee (born Benjamin Agbenyega) studied in Ghana, worked in advertising and design, and painted in acrylic on canvas alongside. Almost all his pictures are devoted to African women, most often in profile. He has exhibited in Accra, the Netherlands, the United States and New Zealand, and took part in the Arte Fiera fair in Bologna in 1998.
Biography
Benjamin Agbenyega, the first of three children of Emmanuel Agbenyega, was born in Ghana in 1966. He became known as a painter under the name Ben Agbee.
He studied at Ghanatta College of Art and Design, where he specialised in art, and graduated in 1989. His exact place of birth is not given in the available information; only the country is known. After graduating Agbee did not give up painting, but earned his living in advertising and design. This shows in his pictures: they are built from flat planes and graphic outlines, with clean drawing and a tidy organisation of fields of colour. Still, nothing in the documents establishes a direct link between his advertising work and his manner, and that is my own observation. His main medium is acrylic on canvas. His subject is almost always the same: African women, usually in profile. To depict them he generally uses one of two approaches. In works of the first type, such as “Wait A Minute”, the women talk in groups, and their clothing and the background are strewn with small symbols that have to be looked at one by one. In works of the second type, such as “Migration”, dark, smooth profiles stand out against coloured geometric shapes that faintly recall sand dunes.
His work has been shown in group and solo exhibitions in Accra, in other towns in Ghana, in the Netherlands, the United States, New Zealand and other countries. Among the best-known showings are the Arte Fiera fair in Bologna (1998) and the National Museum of Ghana in Accra (2010).
Avalanche Publishing includes Agbee’s paintings every year in its “Contemporary African Art” calendar. Among the artists whose work appears there year after year, he is named together with the Ethiopian painter Wosene Worke Kosrof.
Profile notes