A Ghanaian Artist's Gallery

Artwork and Commentary by Jacklyn Laryea

Jackie's Thoughts on the International Influence of her Art

No matter what form it takes, art is the ultimate creative outlet; it is an inherent expression of an individual's experiences in life and a way to better understand the inner workings of that person. Art has always been like a conversation for me, the only forum in which i feel entirely free to articulate the myriad of experiences intricately woven together to form my life.  Creative expression is a celebrated and intrinsic aspect of the Ghanaian people, thus, growing up in this culture undoubtedly shaped who I would become as an artist. Ghana is a country saturated with diverse colors, sounds and rhythms.

In Ghana, an individual’s vision of their own reality cannot simply be confined to the five senses (as certain human emotions cannot even be expressed in a clear and coherent form), rather, each individual is encouraged to press beyond the limits of the physical world in order to arrive at their own unique vision and relationship to the world around them. It common to find dancers reaching into the core of their beings to exhume some hidden emotion that even they cannot find words to define or look at a painting whose mere colors communicate a secret message to each individual viewer. In my own experience, I have had conversation with a brush and pencil that would be impossible to fully express in words.

I have argued with people in paintings and cried with a hopeless spirit onto my canvas. My paintings, drawings and illustrations, to me, are not simply dots of color strategically placed on a canvas or blocks of graphite scratched onto paper. I look at each artwork and remember the emotion behind the image, the on-going dialogue in each piece.

People often ask me how I arrive at certain paintings or why I do not produce artworks that specifically reflect Ghana or Africa in some way. The inevitability of this question and my perpetual inability to provide an accurate answer made me anxious until I returned to Accra, Ghana this month. During my trip I had the opportunity to meet with various artists, wood carvers and dancers. I experienced the culture for the first time not as a Ghanaian, but rather, as an artist.

 

It was then that i discovered that the Ghanaian influence in my artwork is not always manifest in the mere objects I choose to study, but rather, I the way I approach my art and look at my world. Whether I draw a crying Brazilian baby, a classic American ballerina or an African dancer, most of my works chronicle my own struggle to articulate the fundamental pain found within the human psyche...regardless of the subject, my main interest lies in capturing real emotion, something I think originates from my west African heritage. The fact that I depend more on primary colors like red and yellow as well as orange and brown earth tones similarly echoes the influence of the Ghanaian culture in the way in express my own emotion.

 

Jackie Laryea graduated from Middlebury College in 2007 with a degree in International Studies and Political Science. She studied abroad in Madrid, Spain and is currently pursuing a career in Graphic Design. A native of Ghana, she is fluent in both Ga and Spanish. She remains passionate about visual art and has begun to publicly display and sell her paintings and drawings.

If you are interested in contacting Jackie about her artwork you can email her at
jacklyn.laryea@gmail.com