GIDEON APPAH: THE PLAY OF THOUGHT
Pace presents an exhibition of new works by Gideon Appah in Seoul. The exhibition will be accompanied by a digital catalogue, available in both English and Korean, produced by Pace Publishing.
March 21 – April 27, 2024
Marking the artist’s second solo show with the gallery since he joined its program in 2022, and his first-ever solo exhibition in Asia, this presentation will feature paintings and drawings that examine memory and sensuality through Appah’s virtuosic compositional arrangements and his surrealist visual language.
Known for his rich, jewel-toned figurations, Appah paints utopian landscapes that serve as intuitive, outward translations of the inner self. The oneiric, often coastal realms of Appah’s paintings are inhabited by nude and semi-nude figures inspired by the artist’s imaginative readings of archival imagery.
In the new paintings, Appah expands his expressions of memory and cultural identity through his evolving technique and renewed commitment to his distinctive surrealist vocabulary. Within his expansive canvases, life-size athletic figures find anchorage in meticulously crafted landscapes made up of careful interplays of line, color, light, and shade.
Appah’s substantial and layered application of paint dissolves any suggestion of rigidity in his compositions—an effect that he accentuates by revealing areas of undercoat. Left unworked, these abstract sections of lightly washed and dripped paint give rise to almost identifiable forms from within the canvases.
Drawing inspiration for his paintings from a vast visual archive that includes newspaper clippings, family photographs, and Ghanaian films and documentaries—especially those made during a major period of cultural production after the country gained independence in 1957—Appah imbues his works with a uniquely cinematic, scenographic quality.
Initially conceived as preparatory sketches, Appah now regards them as standalone works. Taking on a dreamlike sensibility detached from any identifiable narrative, these monochromatic drawings, alongside The Sensitivity of Everyday Things series—an ongoing body of paintings that explore the rituals of daily life—offer visitors insight into his imaginative process.