‘I’m a creative military’: London embraces Ghanaian artist who chose to paint, not fight | Global development

On the same day that Ghanaian artist Michael Blebo contemplated quitting art altogether, he received a missed call from an unknown number. “I prayed to God before going to bed in early February that if I don’t see a sign by midday, I’ll be done with painting,” says the 31-year-old, from Nuhalenya, a hamlet in the Greater Accra region. “I had done everything that an artist was supposed to do. I saw no future in what I was doing, especially because I’m the breadwinner for my mother, my father, who has been bedridden for close to four years, and my four sisters.”

The missed phone call, however, was from PieceUnique, a new agency for African artists that wanted to represent him.

Founded by the Nigerian artist Oluwole Omofemi and entrepreneur Bayo Akande, PieceUnique’s aim is to “uncover and spotlight talent from Africa and bring it to new audiences worldwide”. The agency has promised to empower African artists by “disrupting the traditional gallery model”, and bridging the gap between African artists and collectors worldwide.

Blebo’s inaugural exhibition took place in London in June and then, earlier this month, he was shown at the 1-54 contemporary African art fair at Somerset House, where the four abstract pieces on display were all sold. His work can currently be seen at the Searching for Roots and Expression exhibition at Coutts bank’s headquarters in the Strand in London until 25 October.

Blebo, whose work is heavily influenced by traditional Ghanaian architecture, often employs the materials used in local buildings – such as mud, clay and straw – as the foundation for his abstract paintings. He sources his pigments from organic materials such as those made from butterfly peas, red ochre and charcoal. His ideas come from his travels around Africa.

His paintings at 1-54 were created in September during a two-week art residency in Ibadan, Nigeria. He created four works inspired by Ibadan’s notable brown roofs, using ochre and pastel on paper.

“One of the first things that caught my attention when I entered Ibadan was these roofs,” he says. “It wasn’t planned or preconceived, but it was the beauty in the eye of the beholder. I was like … how on earth could these people have these beautiful roofs?”

Born in 1993 in Asamankese in Ghana’s Eastern Region, he grew up passionate about art because, he says, he watched his cousin draw cars. Although he was encouraged to join the military, he refused. Today, he wears a beret “to let my family feel happy that they’ve got what they wanted”, he says.

“So now I’m a military, but I’m a creative military. This beret has been my identity for the past five years. I’ve been wearing this everywhere I go,” he says.

Blebo studied as a sculptor in Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Kumasi. His biggest source of inspiration is his environment. He has been living for the past five years in Nuhalenya, where he is also a livestock farmer, and mentors young boys and girls in an area with high dropout rates.

“People don’t go to school here, they don’t see the value of it, young girls are getting pregnant because there is no sense of education,” he says.

Blebo often conducts extensive fieldwork, visiting villages and traditional buildings. Last year, he visited the Sirigu and Tiébiélé regions, home to the Kassena and Nankana tribes in north-eastern Ghana and south-eastern Burkina Faso, where he examined the intricate earth paintings by Sirigu women, which highlight a deep integration of art and architecture within local culture.

During his visit to neighbouring Burkina Faso, he met Kaye Tintama, an octogenarian Sirigu woman who contributed to the murals of the notable Tiébiélé painted houses.

“She was so worried that women were abandoning that traditional way of painting. When I went there, she was so happy that somebody is willing to take on that battle,” he says.

Blebo’s mantra is “go to town”, inspired by his time at university when his professor would encourage students to go to the marketplace to find inspiration.

Artists, in his view, are more or less like investigative journalists. “We go, we have findings, we come back to the studio, we experiment with our ideas. And over the years, I’ve travelled to all the regions in Ghana through this idea, ‘go to town’, and I’ve learned to appreciate life.”