Bright Tetteh Ackwerh

Biography

Bright Ackwerh’s first works were seen not in a gallery but on social media and on the walls of Accra’s streets.

He was born in Accra, Ghana, probably in 1989; the exact date is not known. He attended Accra Academy and studied visual arts in senior high school. He then entered Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in Kumasi, where he earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in fine art, in painting. He finished the first degree in 2011 and the following year worked there as a teaching assistant.

After his studies he showed his work online and painted murals in Accra. He still uses social media, both to show new pieces and to provoke debate around the themes he works on in his illustrations and paintings. His exhibitions have been held in Ghana and abroad: at the Art X Lagos fair in Nigeria, at major shows by the blaxTARLINES collective in Kumasi, and at the Chale Wote Street Art Festival in Accra. He has taken part in group exhibitions in Accra, Paris, Johannesburg and Los Angeles. In 2016 he won the Kuenyehia Prize for Contemporary Ghanaian Art; the ceremony was held at Ringway Estates in Accra. In October 2017 he was featured in an episode of CNN’s African Voices. That same year he was among the top ten artists in the Barclays L’Atelier competition.

He works in popular art, street art, painting and illustration. His subject is Ghanaian social, political and religious issues, shown satirically and sharply, in a way meant to start conversation and argument. He draws inspiration from Fela Kuti, the Nigerian musician, and other African heroes, and he believes that music culture can influence and inspire people. His works often contain double and triple meanings, which give the viewer a way into the subject under discussion. There is little in the available sources about particular paintings or series, and I think that without a catalogue of his exhibitions it is hard to judge how his manner has developed.