Samuel Baah Kortey


Samuel Baah Kortey is a multi-sensory artist and thinker from Kumasi, Ghana. Samuel started paying attention to his immediate environment and highlighting post-colonial traces in the ways of life of modern societies during his art school days in Kumasi, Ghana. Samuel has a BFA and MFA from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (2013-2022). Samuel’s installations have explored and examined the hyper-visible expressions that characterize cities, particularly in Kumasi, where he lives and works. The artist is a member of three collectives, blaxTARLINES, Commune6x3, and a co-founder of the Asafo Black Collective. He has shown in the 2020 Stellenbosch Triennial and the 2022 Documenta 15 with his collectives Asafo Black and blaxTARLINES Kumasi collective respectively. Samuel is a current fellow and resident of the Villa Romana Prize, Florence-Italy.

Artist Statement

Samuel Baah Kortey’s artistic practice engages and explores societies' physical, metaphysical, and social interactions with notions related to religion and the sacred. He is intrigued by religious subjectivities and notions concerning animal and human sacrifices. He uses diverse materials such as animal and human blood, wood, paper, coffee, and resin to create provocative installations that may be perceived as sacrilegious. Still, in the true sense, his work rather critically engages with religious practices within specific cultural contexts, and critically scrutinizes conceptions around the valorization of religious and cultural iconographies within the post-colonial space. A recurring motif in Samuel’s practice is his use of animal blood and coffee which he relates to the daily happenings at the abattoir, social spaces, and various churches across the world. He questions these notions of love, violence, sacrifice, sacred, secular, death, and life...; to subvert these sacred or religious (Christian) traditions centered on humans, to that which advocates compassion towards animals. By subverting and creating parodies of Christian iconographies, Baah probes into the lost aura of the Christ iconography, as it is met with massification by capitalist and hyper-consumerist popular culture, which turns sacred into something banal.


Available Works


Samuel Baah Kortey: Knowing When to Stop Is Important

Knowing When to Stop Is Important

Samuel Baah Kortey

2021

Acrylic, collage and oil stick on canvas

86 5/8 x 79 7/8 in | 220 x 180 cm

Samuel Baah Kortey: Who Said We Are Satisfied? Welcoming Thoughts in Dürerstraße, FRA-ACC

Who Said We Are Satisfied? Welcoming Thoughts in Dürerstraße, FRA-ACC

Samuel Baah Kortey

2021

Acrylic, oil pastels and photographs on paper

33 1/8 x 70 1/8 in | 84,1 x 178,2 cm

Samuel Baah Kortey: Be Your Own Friend for Now, Moments With Ingrid, ACC - FRA

Be Your Own Friend for Now, Moments With Ingrid, ACC - FRA

Samuel Baah Kortey

2024

Acrylic on canvas

27 1/2 x 59 in | 70 x 150 cm

Samuel Baah Kortey: He Who Buys Love Never Stops Paying, Chitchats with Ana Paula, FRA-ACC-FRA

He Who Buys Love Never Stops Paying, Chitchats with Ana Paula, FRA-ACC-FRA

Samuel Baah Kortey

2024

Acrylic and markers on academic assignments

23 5/8 x 19 3/4 in | 60 x 50 cm

Samuel Baah Kortey: Hidden Presence, Cosplaying Dreams with Selam & Ben, FRA-ACC

Hidden Presence, Cosplaying Dreams with Selam & Ben, FRA-ACC

Samuel Baah Kortey

2024

Acrylic and markers on academic assignments

23 5/8 x 19 3/4 in | 60 x 50 cm

Samuel Baah Kortey: Na Gods Forge Am, FRA - ACC

Na Gods Forge Am, FRA - ACC

Samuel Baah Kortey

2024

Acrylic and watercolors on canvas

157 1/2 x 28 3/4 in | 400 x 73 cm

Samuel Baah Kortey: Na Ama Do Am

Na Ama Do Am

Samuel Baah Kortey

2024

Color print on cloth

432 1/4 x 47 1/4 in | 1098 x 120 cm

Samuel Baah Kortey: In Remembrance of the Mighty Healer, 00BC - Forever

In Remembrance of the Mighty Healer, 00BC - Forever

Samuel Baah Kortey

2022

Watercolor, pastels, and collage on paper

31 1/2 x 79 7/8 in | 80 x 180 cm


Exhibitions & Art Fairs

mundane x sacred x profane

After I Lost You

Samuel Baah Kortey

6 Sep - 26 Oct 2024

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mundane x sacred x profane

mundane sacred profane

Valerie Amani, Philip Crawford, Samuel Baah Kortey, Sekai Machache, Ato Ribeiro

29 Jun - 12 Aug 2023

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