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| Credit: Ablade Glover |
If you hear a voice within you say 'you cannot paint,' then by all means
paint, and that voice will be silenced - Vincent Van Gogh
I can’t speak much of how creative I
can be given a pencil and a sheet of paper. I’m not a Visual Artist – I may
never be and I sucked at drawing when I was in Primary school; my crayon works
were nothing to speak about in kindergarten as well.
Maybe Visual Art is just more than that and it
hasn’t been that difficult proving that art indeed is life. It’s not an
argument I intend to drag. Let’s face it; art is valuable and finds
expression in every part of daily lives. “He who loves art, lives” and Visual
arts are highly sensitive means of communicating to the eyes; they can portray
romance, philosophy, religion and a typical preserve of culture.
Don’t be surprised I said that; I’m
having my national service at an office within the Centre for National Culture
here in Accra and I’ve worked closely for the Visual Arts Department of the
centre whose head doubles as the President of the Ghana Visual Artists
Association. So you can understand that
these last two months, I’ve seen many art works than I have seen all my life. I
dare say art is infectious and our Ghanaian artists are simply amazing. Whether
its ceramics, sculpture, painting, textiles designs, graffiti, bead-making,
look! They are simply amazing.
I’ve had the opportunity of taking a
sneak peek of the stories relating to the practice of Visual Arts in Ghana. The
efforts of GAVA and other groups promoting arts in Ghana convinces me that art
can equally be a huge profession and can contribute or already does significantly
to our economy when taken more seriously.
I’ve decided to take it upon myself to
deliver for this country a future of young, creative professional artists by
developing this platform where young Visual Art students especially in high
schools or crazily creative chaps who
may be on the streets can be celebrated and encouraged to set their artistic
goals right.
By making this blog informative and interactive
on anything Visual arts in Ghana, I intend to feature the works of unknown
people who set their creativity right; random people or students who are amazingly
talented and deserve some form of support to grow into full-fledged Visual
Artists. I also wish to complement the efforts of other lovers of art in making
people live their art dreams in a country where everybody would appreciate
Visual Arts using the power of writing and the social media.
Hence the name Abifao Creatives. Abifao in Gȧ means baby or toddler; perhaps we can
see this as a baby effort; hopeful that even bigger artists can be shot to
public fame.
I can’t do this alone…
Let’s get started.
