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Lot Essay
Executed between 2020 and 2021, Yaa the bride is a powerful and enigmatic example of Serge Attukwei Clottey’s mixed media portraits. Against a hypnotic patterned backdrop, composed of ribbons of duct tape, a lone woman hovers in a pristine white gown, her hands clasped around a bunch of flowers. A model and friend of the artist, she is depicted in simple marriage attire, save for the glittering diamantes that sparkle upon her hat and ring. Her face is exquisitely rendered, its contours deftly modelled through light and shadow; complex emotions flicker behind her eyes, while a sweep of crimson illuminates her lips. Layers of thick impasto merge with the corkboard support, creating rich, visceral textures that shift and shimmer with the changing light. Compositionally inspired by mid-century African photographers such as Seydou Keita, Malick Sidibé and James Barnor, Clottey’s portraits employ non-traditional media to explore the relationship between material culture and identity. Here, the bride emerges like a piece of fabric stitched together over time, her form shaped by the very materials from which she is made.
Born and raised in Accra, Ghana, where his father was an artist, Clottey studied at the Ghanatta College of Art before taking on a scholarship in Brazil. A period of time spent working as a model sparked an interest both in the human body as a site of expression, and in the material trappings with which we choose to adorn it. These ideas fed into his early performance practice, which came to form the basis of his oeuvre. Together with his collective GoLokal, Clottey began to explore the role of fabrics and textiles in Ghanaian society, famously staging a stunt during the country’s 2012 elections in which the group dressed up as wealthy politicians and dragged Clottey through the streets by a noose, wearing a sign around his neck saying ‘youth’. In 2016, the artist’s landmark performance My Mother’s Wardrobe saw him take to the streets wearing his deceased mother’s clothes: a response to Ghanaian funeral traditions in which only female family members are permitted to inherit the matriarch’s personal belongings.
Aside from their subject matter, Clottey’s portraits extend his fascination with material culture in numerous other ways. He has spoken of his use of duct tape in relation to the story of Marcus Omofuma, a Nigerian asylum seeker who died after being bound and gagged with the material upon deportation from Austria. In works such as the present, Clottey seeks to reclaim the tape from such violent associations, presenting it instead as a protective, strengthening substance that he cuts and joins like a tailor stitching together fabric. Corkboard, too, holds special significance for the artist: not only for its mercurial properties, which he believes allow it to mimic the appearance of skin, but also for its use in community bulletin boards around his home town. The personal and cultural symbolism Clottey finds within these everyday materials prompts comparison with the work of artists such as El Anatsui, Chris Ofili and Yinka Shonibare; it also feeds into his own sculptural practice, in which he famously uses yellow plastic oil jerrycans to confront Ghana’s colonial history. In Yaa the bride, Clottey offers a vision of our marriage with the physical world, and our inevitable entanglement in its narratives.
Born and raised in Accra, Ghana, where his father was an artist, Clottey studied at the Ghanatta College of Art before taking on a scholarship in Brazil. A period of time spent working as a model sparked an interest both in the human body as a site of expression, and in the material trappings with which we choose to adorn it. These ideas fed into his early performance practice, which came to form the basis of his oeuvre. Together with his collective GoLokal, Clottey began to explore the role of fabrics and textiles in Ghanaian society, famously staging a stunt during the country’s 2012 elections in which the group dressed up as wealthy politicians and dragged Clottey through the streets by a noose, wearing a sign around his neck saying ‘youth’. In 2016, the artist’s landmark performance My Mother’s Wardrobe saw him take to the streets wearing his deceased mother’s clothes: a response to Ghanaian funeral traditions in which only female family members are permitted to inherit the matriarch’s personal belongings.
Aside from their subject matter, Clottey’s portraits extend his fascination with material culture in numerous other ways. He has spoken of his use of duct tape in relation to the story of Marcus Omofuma, a Nigerian asylum seeker who died after being bound and gagged with the material upon deportation from Austria. In works such as the present, Clottey seeks to reclaim the tape from such violent associations, presenting it instead as a protective, strengthening substance that he cuts and joins like a tailor stitching together fabric. Corkboard, too, holds special significance for the artist: not only for its mercurial properties, which he believes allow it to mimic the appearance of skin, but also for its use in community bulletin boards around his home town. The personal and cultural symbolism Clottey finds within these everyday materials prompts comparison with the work of artists such as El Anatsui, Chris Ofili and Yinka Shonibare; it also feeds into his own sculptural practice, in which he famously uses yellow plastic oil jerrycans to confront Ghana’s colonial history. In Yaa the bride, Clottey offers a vision of our marriage with the physical world, and our inevitable entanglement in its narratives.