Ofre Ne Akenkan 2021

Editor: Here we have Cornelius Annor’s oil painting, “Ofre Ne Akenkan,” created in 2021. I’m immediately struck by its slightly unsettling mood. The colours are warm but desaturated, and the subjects, though familiar, seem caught in a strange sort of stillness. What's your take on this? Curator: That stillness is potent, isn't it? The title itself, likely in Twi, a Ghanaian language, hints at something deeper than a simple portrait. Look at the figures: one on the phone, the other reading a newspaper headline that declares "Loans May Stop Soon." Annor is consciously staging them, drawing on symbolic gestures. Editor: Symbolic gestures? Like what? Curator: Consider the act of reading. The newspaper isn't just about information; it's a signifier of societal participation, or perhaps anxiety in the face of economic precarity. The phone is connection, but also distance. Annor, in presenting these men, invites us to consider their roles in a changing society, maybe a society wrestling with modernization and tradition. Do you see echoes of other artists portraying men in domestic interiors, perhaps in slightly earlier styles? Editor: I see that now. There’s definitely a deliberate staging, a tableau vivant quality. I didn't immediately connect it to art history but I understand what you are saying about staging them as cultural actors now. Curator: Exactly. It’s not merely a snapshot. He's activating a whole visual language, using familiar signs—phones, newspapers—to explore deeper cultural anxieties and aspirations, ones that may be locally situated but broadly resonant. He's speaking through cultural memory. Editor: That makes the title much more meaningful. Thanks, I'm walking away seeing an entirely new layer. Curator: Precisely, visual art enables a different kind of "reading" about who we are as individuals and community.