Exhibition
Paa Joe: Taking It With You - Jack Bell Gallery
Jack Bell Gallery is pleased to announce a solo selling exhibition of sculpted coffins by the Ghanaian artist Paa Joe. The four works in the show are all iconic symbols of local life. The golden African eagle, fish, Air Ghana jet, and Cocoa pod are testament to the vibrancy of West African culture and the ability and imagination of the local artists.
These works blur the line between art and craft. Reflecting the ambition or the trade of the person for whom they were made they are not dead things but are instead a manifestation of and indeed an affirmation of life. The works are wholly African and are a contemporary embodiment of traditional tribal burial rituals and art practice. They link back to pre-colonial West African sculpture but also recall the pomp and extravagance of ancient Egyptian royal tombs and perhaps – in contemporary Western art practice they recall Jeff Koons. They too are kitsch, Paa Joe, like Koons, plays with scale and with a work like the Jet, with material and commercial ostentation.
