Born in 1966, D.A. Jasper is a seminal Golden Age movie poster painter from the Coastal region. Prolific. Began painting movie posters in the late 1980s. An accomplished sign painter, including large-scale billboards and building facades. Apprentice of Emmanuel Okai. Painted the often nuanced and detailed polychrome exteriors of the vast majority of the fantasy coffins aka FAVs—Fantastic Afterlife Vehicles, sculpted by the workshops of Kane Kwei, Paa Joe, and Theophilus Nii Anum Sowah from the mid-1980s until 2004. A life-long body-building enthusiast, he brought his love and intimate knowledge of musculature directly from his own well-sculpted body to the genre of movie posters. Is responsible for muscles, in all their awesome bulge-osity, being a major part of the visual vocabulary of this entire tradition. His orbs of fire bunched up like hanging fruit in a vineyard spew spits of molten lava. Makes hyper-realistic interpretations of original artwork often without reinventing actions in the film.

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: Cavin Morris Gallery, New York, NY September 2001

2003: Seven from Ghana, Sundance Film Festival, Park City, UT January 2003 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

2006: Serpents, Mermaids and Action Heroes, Parkland College Art Gallery, Champaign, IL

2008: “Extreme Canvas: Hand Painted Movie Posters from Ghana”, ArcLight Cinemas 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

2010: “Highlights from the Permanent Collection”, Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, MA

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 – 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

PUBLICATIONS:

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

2003 New York Times Magazine, “Why We Love Fashion? It’s Universal; Planet Ghana”, Ernie Wolfe III, February 23, 2003

2006: Juxtapoz Art & Culture Magazine, Suzanne Williams, November 2006, page 56 - 61

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

COLLECTION:

Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, MA