Solomon Adufah (b. 1988) is a Ghanaian-born, Chicago-based artist. He is a multidisciplinary artist whose incredibly striking work depicts narratives and complexities of identity through cultural exchange and negotiates the social-historical paradigm of globalization in his home country and regions. Adufah employs inherited traditional painting themes yet is carefully composed and accompanied by vibrantly colored backgrounds. He achieves artistic delineation by using bold-colored patterns, textures, and shapes relevant to the everyday lives and communities he engages with. He combines specific photographic images from memory and experiences into a visually seamless arrangement. These memories become the vocabulary that informs his uniquely illustrated paintings. Adufah’s palette of colors is appointed following the tones and nuances of his community, conveying specificity beyond the personal periphery. This constant physical engagement is mirrored in his work, carefully examining the endless parallels through his experiences.
Adufah received his BFA from the University of Southern Illinois (SIUC) in 2017. He was awarded the Bilder Art Scholarship and Rickert-Ziebold Trust; two of the institution’s highest prestigious awards offered in the arts. During the same period, Adufah’s work was exhibited at the Southern Illinois Museum of African Art. In 2016-2017, he was commissioned by the Institution to present works to Civil Rights Activist Dr. Cornel West and founder of the Black Panther Party, Angela Davis. In 2022, Adufah served on an external advisory group for The Art Institute of Chicago to establish its renewed exhibition Language of Beauty in African Art. He participated in the Center Program designed for artists, by Hyde Park Art Center with distinctive partnerships with other Chicago institutions and leaders in the visual arts like 3Arts, Luminarts, Marwen, UChicago’s Arts + Public Life, and Center for the Study of Race, Politics & Culture at the High Park Art Center.
His work has been exhibited in Scope Art Basel Miami and public arts in Ghana. In 2017, he was published in New American Painting, Edition 131. He exhibited his first international solo exhibition in Geneva, Switzerland with a remarkable series of work now in private collections in Europe, North America, and Africa. Through his Homeland Project started in 2014, Adufah has helped facilitate creative art workshops to support children in Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda.
CV
2017 BFA, Southern Illinois University. Illinois (USA)
EXHIBITIONS
Solo Exhibition
2019 Galerie desbain, Moment of Mindfulness. Geneva, Switzerland.
2017 Connect Gallery, This Image Is Not Available in Your Country. Chicago, IL.
2016 The Bishop Gallery, Homeland Ghana. Brooklyn, NY.
Group Exhibition
2020 Black Creativity, Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago. IL
2017 Art Africa Miami, Art Basel Art Fair/Back to Black. Miami FL.
2017 Surplus Gallery, Rickert-Ziebold Trust Award. Carbondale, IL
2017 NYCH Gallery, Farewell44. Chicago, IL.
2017 NAACP Gala, Carbondale, IL.
2016 Southern Illinois Museum of African Art, Carbondale, IL.
2016 Art Africa Miami. Soul Basel. Miami, FL.
2016 Gallery Guichard. Bombay Sapphire Artisan Series. Miami, FL
2016 Crude Creatures Gallery, Parallel Universe. Chicago, IL
2016 Surplus Gallery, C4 Exhibition. Carbondale, IL.
2015 Gallery Guichard, Bombay Sapphire Artisan Series. Chicago, IL.
PROGRAM/RESIDENCY
2018 Center Program, Hyde Park Art Center. Chicago, IL (CP17)
PUBLICATION/AWARDS
Awards
2017 Rickert-Ziebold Trust Award Winner 2017 Bilder Art Scholarship
2016 Bombay Sapphire Artisan Series Chicago Regional 1st Place Winner
2016 10 Annual Forum Juried Exhibition Best in Show- 1st Runner UP
Publication
2017 New American Paintings. No. 131.
2016 BBC News, Homeland Philanthropic work
2015 ABC7 Chicago, Homeland Ghana
2015 Heart and Soul: FOX32 Chicago “Homeland”: Life of Solomon Adufah
2015 WGNTV Chicago artist