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COWBOYS AND TWINS take center stage at the Rubell Museum in Miami, where Otis Kwame Kye Quaicoe presents its exhibition Artist in Residence 2021. Quaicoe stands out among a proliferation of young artists emerging in recent years whose central focus is the black portrait.
Quaicoe usually does portraits of his friends and family. Images are studies of contrast and representation. He paints the skin of his subjects in shades of ebony and charcoal gray and uses a vibrant palette for their clothes. The dramatic approach captures the individuality and innate style of his subjects who are masters of themselves with photographic detail.
Born in Accra, Ghana, Quaicoe lives and works in Portland, Oregon. For his latest series of paintings at the Rubell Museum, the artist draws inspiration from his personal and cultural history. In Ghanaian Ga culture, the birth of twins is seen as evidence of an inherent connection between the bodily and the spiritual. Son of twins, Quaicoe explores phenomena in a series of double portraits.
He also seeks to give visibility to the history of black American cowboys. Working on a monumental 12-foot-tall ladder, Quaicoe presents a trio of powerful portraits that offer its own contemporary, avant-garde take: cowboy hats; red turtlenecks; and long blue, black and blonde braids with jewelry accents. CT
Otis Kwame Kye Quaicoe: Artist in Residence 2021 is on view at the Rubell Museum in Miami, Fla. From November 29, 2021 to October 2022
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OTIS KWAME KYE QUAICOE, “Akwete”, 2021 (oil on canvas, 40 x 30 inches, 101.6 x 76.2 cm). | © Otis Kwame Kye Quaicoe, acquired by Rubell Museum in 2021
OTIS KWAME KYE QUAICOE, “Flamboyant Posture”, 2021 (oil on canvas, 72 x 72 inches / 182.9 x 182.9 cm). | © Otis Kwame Kye Quaicoe, acquired by Rubell Museum in 2021
OTIS KWAME KYE QUAICOE, “Oko”, 2021 (oil on canvas, 40 x 30 inches / 101.6 x 76.2 cm). | © Otis Kwame Kye Quaicoe, acquired by Rubell Museum in 2021
OTIS KWAME KYE QUAICOE, “Moses Adomah”, 2021 (oil on canvas, 144 x 108 inch / 365.8 x 274.3cm). | © Otis Kwame Kye Quaicoe, acquired by Rubell Museum in 2021
OTIS KWAME KYE QUAICOE, “Rainyanni (Cowgirl)”, 2021 (oil on canvas, 144 x 108 inches / 365.8 x 274.3 cm). | © Otis Kwame Kye Quaicoe, acquired by Rubell Museum in 2021
OTIS KWAME KYE QUAICOE, “David Theodore”, 2021 (oil on canvas, 144 x 108 inches / 365.8 x 274.3 cm). | © Otis Kwame Kye Quaicoe, acquired by Rubell Museum in 2021
OTIS KWAME KYE QUAICOE, “Oko et Akwete in Beret”, 2021 (oil on canvas, 101.6 x 152.4 cm). | © Otis Kwame Kye Quaicoe, acquired by Rubell Museum in 2021
TOP IMAGE: View of the installation Otis Kwame Kye Quaicoe (3) at the Rubell Museum, Miami, 2021.
LEARN MORE about Otis Kwame Kye Quaicoe on Instagram
LEARN MORE At Art Basel Miami Beach, Los Angeles-based Roberts Projects is currently showing new portraits of Otis Kwame Kye Quaicoe in a special installation by Kabinett, presented in conjunction with his debut at the Rubell Museum. Quaicoe’s recent solo show “One But Two (Haadzii)” was on view this summer at Roberts Projects
READ MORE Otis Kwame Kye Quaicoe was included in “Aesthetic of the Cool: Amoako Boafo, Kwesi Botchway, and Otis Quaicoe” at the 1957 gallery in Accra, and “Ontology: Conrad Egyir, Derek Fordjour, Otis Kwame Kye Quaicoe, Patrick Quarm and Yaw Owusu ”, curated by Larry Ossei-Mensah at the Ross + Kramer Gallery in New York. Both exhibitions featured a select group of Ghanaian artists who have gained notable recognition and made significant strides in recent years. Currently showing, Kye Quaicoe is featured in “Black American Portraits” at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art
BOOKSHELF
In 2020, “Otis Kwame Kye Quaicoe: Black Like Me” was released to document the artist’s first exhibition with Roberts Projects in Los Angeles. Also consider the recently published volume “African Artists: From 1882 to Now”, alongside “Unrealism: New Figurative Painting” and “Radical Figures: Painting in the New Millennium”.
