Born Accra, Ghana (1992), lives and works in Ghana, Accra
Sequence: Draft One 2017
photo series, various formats
Courtesy of the artist
The selected images are sequences representing passages of Poku Mensah’s life.
Each image produced in a different lapse of time serves as a mark, memories to deep emotional phases of the artist’s short-comings. The selected sequences are also self-portraits inside which the artist figures in the background in such a manner as to expose his existence as subordinate to his environment. For this reason, the theme of the 2017 Lagos Biennial appears relevant as the viewer is exposed to subjugated self-portraits of the artists in various circumstances.
“Living on the Edge” becomes relevant in these photographs not only because Poku appears as a sub-dividend subject in his portraits but because, in the very act of representation, masking the power of the image’s own arbitrariness; its potential for opacity, simulacra and distortion, aspires to multiple discourses.
Various forms of allusions seized from Poku’s immediate present become these images together conveying a self-made narrative. A story created from the artist’s determination of his own visible material manifestation.
