Art
Caleb Prah
Ghanaian artist, Caleb Prah, shares images from his series of paintings Dukes of Trotro.
In his words: The Dukes of Trotro takes pictures of Trotro (public transport in Ghana) drivers and their mates in the profile position facing each other. This project is an appropriation of a painting by the Italian renaissance painter Piero Dela Francesca commissioned by the Duke of Urbino. In framing the Dukes of Trotro I look for the boot of old Trotro cars which are no longer in use. The printing of the work is done on sticker and stuck on a plywood cut to fit where the glass wind screen use to be. The old car boot replaces the golden frames which is a symbol of wealth and prosperity of the subjects of the painting that dominated the age of the easel picture. On these car boots are stickers that dominate the ‘Trotro’ culture.
Artist Statement
I examine the African society and with the spirit of improvisation create a visual representation that borrows from western Art history to tell the story of Africans in a different dimension subversively. My work retells the African story by creating visually engaging portraits that borrow postures and compositional concepts from western art history. My works question the hegemonic representation of the male-white figure in art history and the issue of white supremacy even in the 21st century. I also question the issue of elitism and capitalism by presenting the images of proletariat in iconographic and aristocratic postures in portraiture (the side view of the head is reminiscent of images on ancient coins). My work shows the relationship between human beings and objects, showing the relationship between these proletariat and the everyday objects in their lives. (The objects usually circular in nature forms an aura/halo around their heads presenting them as saints.) My work also creates another relationship between photography and objects through framing. The works, instead of being framed by the usual neutral rectangular frames, is framed by objects that correspond to the subject explored in the work.
May 2020. Vol nº1