By John Owoo
(Accra – Ghana)
At first glance, Nkwaye Ansah’s So Real So Surreal seems to inhabit the familiar territory of portraiture. Look closer, however, and the exhibition begins to unsettle expectations.
Presented at The Dei Center in Accra, the exhibition brings together a compelling body of watercolor and ink paintings that transform recognizable African figures, gestures, and environments through exaggeration, symbolism, and surreal intervention.
Ansah’s portraits are less concerned with merely recording appearances than with revealing states of mind. Faces become expressive territories, and gestures and unusual juxtapositions suggest stories unfolding beyond the picture plane. His subjects appear to inhabit an Africa that is both familiar and imagined—rooted in everyday experience yet pushed toward an alternative, almost futuristic reality.
This tension between the real and the surreal is particularly effective because of Ansah’s use of watercolor. Often associated with delicacy and translucency, the medium can be notoriously demanding when used to achieve detailed realism.
Indeed, he exploits that difficulty to remarkable effect. Layer upon layer of washes creates tonal depth, while ink reinforces selected details and gives his compositions a graphic precision. The result is work that may initially appear light and fluid but rewards sustained looking.
Among the exhibition’s most intriguing elements is Ansah’s recurring fascination with gorillas and other simian figures. Rather than treating these creatures as symbols of primitivity, he presents them as embodiments of strength, patience, and self-mastery.
His gorillas are muscular, monumental, and contemplative, often appearing to weigh their response to the noise and pressures around them. The imagery consequently becomes a meditation on restraint, confidence, and personal transformation.
Ansah’s interest in Afro-futurism further expands the exhibition’s imaginative possibilities. His imagined African futures are not distant fantasies but extensions of the present, in which native and urban identities coexist in unconventional settings. The paintings suggest an Africa capable of envisioning itself beyond inherited visual and cultural conventions.
What ultimately distinguishes So Real So Surreal is its refusal to settle comfortably within a single aesthetic category. Ansah moves among portraiture, expressionism, realism, and surrealism, using each to complicate the others. His figures stare, gesture, and remain remarkably still, yet the worlds around them seem to move constantly.
Undeniably, these works invite viewers to look beyond surface likeness and consider the psychological and cultural worlds contained within a face, a gesture—or even a gorilla. So Real So Surreal is therefore not merely an exhibition of accomplished watercolors; it is an imaginative proposition about African identity, perception, and possibility.
The exhibition ends on Sunday, August 30, 2026.
