Born 1967, Ghana, West Africa. Apprentice of Alex Amofa. Seminal Kumasi, Central Ghana, based master Golden Age poster painter and art teacher who perfected the faux airbrush style known as Africatta’s “master stroke.” As leader of the “Kumasi Four,” his style greatly influenced the other three, his apprentices, Babs, Kofi Issah, and Francisco. In spite of its airbrushed appearance, this stroke is actually executed with a regular paintbrush and a dobbing technique utilizing wet paint. Loves to float his subjects against a color field background. A prolific painter. Has painted everything from imagination-driven movie posters to stenciled images of tomatoes on walls of small towns during his long career as an art troubadour. Makes the most out of the subtle highlights in his faux airbrush style in order to suggest rather than definitively depict his subject matter. The two-bag flour sack format is his favorite for movie posters. Began painting current events in between his stints as a leader of a team of young artists doing stencil paintings for international advertisers, mostly in rural areas of Ghana. Stopped painting movie posters, per se, just before the millennium.

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS:

1993: Hand-Painted Movie Posters from Ghana, Ernie Wolfe Gallery, Los Angeles 

1996: Hand-Painted Movie Posters from Ghana, Ernie Wolfe Gallery, Bergamot Station, Santa Monica

1999: Hand-Painted Movie Posters from Ghana, Ernie Wolfe Gallery, Los Angeles

2001: Death-Stalking Sleep-Walking Barbarian Ninja Terminators: Hand-Painted Movie Posters from Ghana, Fowler Museum of Cultural History, UCLA, Los Angeles, (voted best exhibition of 2001 by LA Weekly)

2001 – 2002: Extreme Canvas: Hand-Painted Movie Posters from Ghana, Ernie Wolfe Gallery, Los Angeles

2001: “Extreme Canvas”, Cavin Morris Gallery, New York, NY September 2001

2003: Outrageous Supercharge: Hand-Painted Movie Posters from Ghana, MASS MoCA, North Adams, MA 

2004: Africa Screams, Iwalewa-Haus Afrikazentrum der Universitat Bayreuth, 2004

Traveled to Vienna November 2004 – February 2005

2006: Extreme Canvas, Center for African American Culture, Pittsburgh, PA

2007:  “Black Like We”, Feldman-Horn Gallery, Harvard-Westlake School, North Hollywood, CA

2009: “Out of Africa: Obama and McCain Praise Portraits and Visual Narratives”, Ernie Wolfe Gallery, Los Angeles; Reviewed in the Los Angeles Times on May 21, 1999, by art critic David Pagel

2009: “No This Is It: Michael Jackson, 25 Years of Praise Portraits”, Ernie Wolfe Gallery, Los Angeles

2012: “Michael Jackson in the After-Life: Praise Portraits and Commentary Paintings from Ghana”, Ernie Wolfe Gallery, Los Angeles

2013: Wow Women, Ernie Wolfe Gallery, Los Angeles

2013: The Horror The Horror!, Ernie Wolfe Gallery, curated by Brandon Boyd

2013: “Viva Mandela!”, Ernie Wolfe Gallery, Los Angeles

2014: Knock Off – Hand-Painted Movie Posters from Ghana, Guggenheim Gallery, Chapman University, Orange, CA

2014: “Ghana Pop”, Ernie Wolfe Gallery, Los Angeles

2014: Continental Convergence: Hand-Painted Martial Arts Posters from Ghana, Ernie Wolfe Gallery, Chinatown, Los Angeles. 

2016: Kung Fu in Africa: Hand-Painted Movie Posters from Ghana (1985-1999), Hanart TZ, Hong Kong

2017 - 2018: Ghana Paints Hollywood: Hand Painted Movie Posters from Ghana, New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain, CT curated by Ernie Wolfe III

2019: Macro/Micro: Bronze/Canvas: Gwynn Murrill & Bob Graham, Africatta & Joe Mensah, Ernie Wolfe Gallery, Los Angeles

2019 – 2020, Baptized by Beefcake: The Golden Age of Hand Painted Movie Posters from Ghana, Poster House, New York, NY co-curated by Ernie Wolfe III and Angelina Lippert

2019 – 2020, Praise Portraits from Ghana: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly!, Ernie Wolfe Gallery, Los Angeles

PUBLICATIONS:

2000: Extreme Canvas: Hand-Painted Movie Posters from Ghana, Ernie Wolfe III, Dilettante Press, 2000

2000: Juxtapoz Art & Culture Magazine, Ernie Wolfe III, Nov/Dec 2000, pages 44-51

2009: African Arts, Volume 42, number 3, 20, Autumn 2009, “The Radiance of the King”, Don Cosentino

2012: Extreme Canvas 2: The Golden Age of Hand-Painted Movie Posters from Ghana, Ernie Wolfe III, Kesho/Malaika Press, 2012