Philip Kwame Apagya

Philip Kwame Apagya (born 1958) is a Ghanaian photographer who specialises in colour studio portraits against painted backdrops.[1] He lives and works in Shama, Ghana.[2]

Life and career

Philip Kwame Apagya, born in Sekondi in 1958, was born as the son of a photographer, and apprenticed in his father's studio as a boy. He studied photojournalism at the Accra School of Journalism before opening his own studio in Shama, on Ghana's west coast, in 1982.[3] He is known today for his studio portraits made using brightly colored backdrops.[4]

Apagya's work is in The Contemporary African Art Collection (CAAC) of Jean Pigozzi.[5]

Apagya's works have been exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago, the Sheldon Art Galleries in Nebraska, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, among other venues. His photographs are in many collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, NY, and the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY.

Apagya is represented by Fifty One Fine Art Photography in Antwerp, Belgium.[6]

Art Work


Apagya challenged the traditional methodology in his executions of studio portrait art and introduced new concepts into the form of photography. Apagya, born into the first generation of an independent Ghana, brought modern qualities of consumerism into his art through his backgrounds. Apagya paints shelves with televisions and speakers with enlarged main brand names, like Sony, and refrigerators stocked full of food in his backdrops of interior locations and for exterior locations, he paints the famous and wealthy streets of Ghana as well as the Accra International Airport.[7]

Apagya combines classic elements of traditional African culture with the modern world of western consumerism by filling his backgrounds with material goods consistent with depictions of western middle class lifestyle, and having his subjects remain in traditional clothing.[8]

Exhibitions

Solo exhibitions
  • 2005: Rena Branston Gallery, San Francisco
  • 2004: Recent Photographs, Jack Shainman Gallery, New York
  • 2003: Philip Kwame Apagya, Galerie Stähli, Zürich, Germany
  • 2002: Philip Kwame Apagya, Galerie Schuebbe, Düsseldorf, Germany
  • 2002: Apagya Portraits, Iwalewa-Haus, Bayreuth
  • 2002: Berlin Portraits by Philip Kwame Apagya, Goethe-Institut, Accra and Ghana National Museum, Accra
  • 2002: Philip Kwame Apagya, Alliance Francaise, Bahia
  • 2000: Philip Kwame Apagya Portraits, Galerie Forma Libera, Turin, Italy
  • 2000: Philip Kwame Apagya, Disegni Animati, Galerie Louisa delle Piane, Mailand
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References
  1. "Philip K. Apagya: Aspirational backgrounds in studio portraiture", Luminous-Lint.
  2. Philip Kwame Apagya biography, Contemporary African Art Collection.
  3. "Philip Kwame Apagya" bio, the National Museum of African Art.
  4. Amy Griffin, "Exhibition offers a fresh, complex view of Africa", Times Union, 6 April 2012.
  5. "Philip Kwame Apagya – Pigozzi Collection 2018". CAACART – The Pigozzi Collection. Retrieved 19 April 2018.
  6. Philip K. Apagya page at Fifty One.
  7. "Philip Kwame Apagya at Jack Shainman". cas.iu.edu. Retrieved 14 August 2020.
  8. Cotter, Holland (30 January 2004). "ART IN REVIEW; Philip Kwame Apagya". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 14 August 2020.
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