A Messengers Guideline

German-Ghanaian artist Selassie works with wide, physical gestures in which he trusts his intuition. At its best, the genuine application of oil paint is awakening the ghosts of his past. Growing up in Ghana as part of a family from the Ewe people, the representative power of symbols, icons and stickmen play a major role in his work. In harmony with nature, they are meant to create the missing link to a universal wisdom that seems to have been lost in our cultural circles.

Within that spiritual set-up, Selassie identifies visual art (just like music) as an agent of culture who mediate individual and collective memory liberated from aesthetic criteria. The large-format tableau 'Grandma's fabric' is part of this mediation, which colorfully transfers into the present. The pattern refers to the Kente fabrics, which are known beyond the borders of West Africa - and place local textile production in the context of global supply chains. At the same time, the composition of acrylic paint and wood are a personal tribute to his grandma’s rough skin, as Selassie remembers from being a small boy.