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Otis Kwame Kye Quaicoe (Ghanaian, born 1990) Untitled, 2017 ((3)) image 1
Otis Kwame Kye Quaicoe (Ghanaian, born 1990) Untitled, 2017 ((3)) image 2
Otis Kwame Kye Quaicoe (Ghanaian, born 1990) Untitled, 2017 ((3)) image 3
Otis Kwame Kye Quaicoe (Ghanaian, born 1990) Untitled, 2017 ((3)) image 4
Otis Kwame Kye Quaicoe (Ghanaian, born 1990) Untitled, 2017 ((3)) image 5
Lot 45

Otis Kwame Kye Quaicoe
(Ghanaian, born 1990)
Untitled, 2017

9 March 2022, 16:00 GMT
London, New Bond Street

Sold for £35,250 inc. premium

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Otis Kwame Kye Quaicoe (Ghanaian, born 1990)

Untitled, 2017
signed 'Kye' (lower right of canvas illustrating woman with red lips)
acrylic and oil on canvas
each canvas: 46 x 45.8cm (18 1/8 x 18 1/16in).
(3)

Footnotes

Provenance
Commissioned from the artist by the present owner in 2017.

Commissioned by the present owner in 2017, the three works exemplify Ghanian artist Otis Kwame Key Quaicoe's riotous celebration of colour which has come to characterise his approach to portraiture. His kinetic application of richly saturated hues carves out the head and shoulders of the women from backdrops swept with violet purple, mossy green, and bluish grey. For Quaicoe, colour is not simply employed as a pictorial element, but is imbued with feeling. 'Yellow, bright green, orange, pink... they are colors that make me feel alive. Any time I see bright yellow it just makes me really happy' (Quaicoe quoted in Steer, 2021). Quaicoe rejects naturalism to embrace the emotive potential of his palette: 'Color means a great deal where I come from. It's a distinguishing quality – a means of self-expression' (Quaicoe quoted in NevahBlackDown: A Magazine, 2020). The brightly coloured lips of the female figures – fiery red, sunny yellow, and cool blue – act as a device that unites the three works while granting each portrait a distinctive character.

Born in 1988 in Accra, Ghana, Quaicoe found early artistic inspiration in the stylized depictions of famous actors featured on the hand-painted movie posters he encountered at cinemas as a child. He began visiting artists' studios to observe their practice and attempted to imitate their techniques. One of these local artists referred Quaicoe to the Ghanatta College of Art and Design where he undertook an MFA in painting. The young artist conceived of his training as a period of experimentation but felt that it was only following his graduation in 2008 that he found his own creative vision. In 2017, he left Ghana for Portland, Oregon, where he continues to live and work today. He has since garnered international acclaim for his empowering depictions of black subjects.

The present works were created at a pivotal moment in Quaicoe's practice. They mark a turning point at which the artist moved from a heavily stylised depiction of his figures to pursue figurative realism. The three portraits of women mark an intermediary stage in this transition, casting them as significant works within the artist's developing oeuvre. In his more recent works, the vibrant palette used to articulate the women's faces are restricted to his figures' clothing and the backgrounds, while the blue-grey used to depict the woman with blue lips has become the standard hue of his subjects' skin tones.

In 2020 Quaicoe held his first solo exhibition in America at the Roberts Projects, Los Angeles. Titled Black Like Me, the show established the artist's distinctive intervention in contemporary portraiture. His luminous oil paintings of black subjects asserted his ongoing thematic exploration of representation in relation to the Africa diaspora. The exhibition catapulted Quaicoe to critical attention and in 2021 he undertook the prestigious residency at the Rubell Museum, Miami, which culminated in his first solo museum show. Quaicoe is now widely considered to be one of the foremost figurative artists working today. His work is currently on display in the acclaimed exhibition Black American Portraits at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art until April 2022.

Bibliography
Emily Steer, 'Otis Kwame Kye Quaicoe: "Who Is This? Why Are They Staring So Deeply at Me?"', Elephant Magazine, 8 April 2021, online

'Black Like Me – Paintings by Otis Kwame Kye Quaicoe', NevahBlackDown: A Magazine, 13 January 2020, online.

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