Exhibits

Newark Based Artist, Kwesi Kwarteng creates resplendent textile artworks using a diversity of culturally significant fabrics from around the world and canvas, which he dyes by hand, stitches, and reimagines as masterful painterly tapestries. Kwarteng’s repertoire of artworks can be characterized by 3 distinguished textile mediums—multi-dimensional sub-sculptures that combine textiles and mesh wire, drape pieces that combine a multitude of textiles that he shapes into fluid, floating fabric arrangements and one he calls, ‘textile paintings” which appear as stretched and framed abstract works. Kwarteng approaches his art practice with an intentionality and regard for the perfect imperfection of his experimental creative expression. His abstract textile works on canvas, the “textile paintings' ' are precise and serve to distill the conversation between the more layered drape and sub-sculptural works. All Kwarteng’s works serve to explore multi-cultural identity, social cohesion, and global interconnectivity which act as counterpoints to the absurdity of racial/migrant tensions and social divisions that persists in the US where Kwarteng lives, and around the world. In Kwarteng’s works, there is an exploration and reimagining of the practice of the handmade, woven textile traditions of the Akan and Ewe weavers of Ghana. He is equally influenced by El Anatsui’s extraordinary sculptures, twentieth century African American quilting artistry, and abstract, color field paintings by Sam Gilliam among others. He perfectly captures the nuances of using what might be considered a myriad of discarded remnants and swatches to align narratives that reflect his experience growing up in Ghana and moving to the United States as a teenager. Through his early challenges as an immigrant, he learned to embrace the multi-facets of culture and the heterogeneity of the immigrant story in the Bronx, New York, later Newark, NJ. Two of the most culturally diverse cities in the United States. Kwesi Kwarteng (1988) born in Accra, Ghana and currently lives and works in Newark, New Jersey. He is an alumni of the School of Visual Arts (SVA), New York City. His works are held in private and corporate collections around the world.