Green Handbag

A woman pauses against a warm pink wall, glancing back at us with an easy sort of confidence. Her lavender coat and the vivid green handbag that lends this painting its name stand out sharply against the soft background, and her long braids fall gracefully past her shoulder. The mood is casual and human, like we happened upon her mid-thought during an ordinary day.

The artist behind this piece is Amoako Boafo, a Ghanaian painter who has risen to fame remarkably fast. One of his signature moves is painting skin with his fingers rather than brushes, which gives his subjects a rich, tactile texture full of life. Boafo places Black figures at the heart of his work, framing them against bold, flat colors so they command all of our attention, always treated with warmth and respect.

Raised in Accra and later working in Vienna, Boafo takes cues from painters like Egon Schiele while shaping a voice entirely his own. His art has circled the globe, and in 2021 several of his pieces even rode a rocket toward the edge of space. Underneath the striking colors sits a straightforward idea: these are people worth noticing, worth honoring, and worth remembering.