Adelaide Damoah

Works

Adelaide Damoah: It's 3am and one of the most intense, spiritual, divinely feminine, creative, sexual experiences just happened in my brain while I slept off the pain (Part 1)

It's 3am and one of the most intense, spiritual, divinely feminine, creative, sexual experiences just happened in my brain while I slept off the pain (Part 1)

Painting

2021

Pigment on canvas

153 x 102 cm

60 1/4 x 40 1/8 in

Adelaide Damoah: It's 3am and one of the most intense, spiritual, divinely feminine, creative, sexual experiences just happened in my brain while I slept off the pain (Part 2)

It's 3am and one of the most intense, spiritual, divinely feminine, creative, sexual experiences just happened in my brain while I slept off the pain (Part 2)

Painting

2021

Pigment on canvas

153 x 102 cm

60 1/4 x 40 1/8 in

Adelaide Damoah: Moon cycle, period, full moon. This week, I have simultaneously experienced intense pleasure and excruciating pain

Moon cycle, period, full moon. This week, I have simultaneously experienced intense pleasure and excruciating pain

Painting

2021

Pigment and spray paint on wooden board

121 x 192 cm

47 6/10 x 75 6/10 in

Adelaide Damoah: The pain took me to another place with the pleasure and it was a magical beautiful creative womb space

The pain took me to another place with the pleasure and it was a magical beautiful creative womb space

Painting

2021

Pigment on canvas

120 x 183 cm

47 1/4 x 72 in

Adelaide Damoah: Where my whole body came more alive than it ever has been but only in my mind

Where my whole body came more alive than it ever has been but only in my mind

Painting

2021

Pigment and spray paint on canvas

76 x 76 cm

29 9/10 x 29 9/10 in

Adelaide Damoah: Moonlit Power

Moonlit Power

Painting

2021

Pigment and ink on canvas

190 x 200 cm

74 8/10 x 78 3/4 in

Adelaide Damoah: Softly, gently, slowly

Softly, gently, slowly

Painting

2021

Pigment and ink on hand made khadi paper

83 x 198 cm

32 7/10 x 78 in

Adelaide Damoah: So that every part of you caresses every part of me

So that every part of you caresses every part of me

Painting

2021

Pigment and ink on hand made khadi paper

81 x 195 cm

31 9/10 x 76 3/4 in

Adelaide Damoah: There is a kind of violence in my desire for you

There is a kind of violence in my desire for you

Painting

2021

Pigment and ink on hand made khadi paper

111 x 162 cm

43 7/10 x 63 3/4 in

Adelaide Damoah: Olga

Olga

Painting

2018

Pigment and ink on hand made cotton rag paper

135 x 94 cm

53 1/8 x 37 in

Adelaide Damoah: Marie-Therese

Marie-Therese

Painting

2018

Pigment and ink on hand made cotton rag paper

135 x 94 cm

53 1/8 x 37 in


Bio

British-Ghanaian artist Adelaide Damoah works at the intersection of painting and performance within the context of colonialism, identity, sexuality and spirituality. After studying applied biology at Kingston University London, her subsequent career in the pharmaceutical industry was cut short following a diagnosis of the chronic illness endometriosis. While convalescing, she dedicated herself to art.

Damoah's current practice involves using her body as a "living paintbrush" to paint or print onto various surfaces. Initially inspired by a desire to subvert Yves Klein's "Anthropometries," in which he directed a group of women to cover their nude bodies in his signature Blue paint and then imprint themselves on white paper, Damoah prints her body onto white surfaces, thereby remixing Klein's original performance through her own identity and encouraging discussion about female representation, feminism, sexual stereotypes and art history. Combining her body prints with found images, text and gold, she also explores her personal family history and Britain's colonial past with Ghana in her work.

Damoah describes her practice as "generating a spontaneous communi(cati)on between myself and an audience using a performance in which I function as a channel by which a recorded history of what was previously known but became unknown in the past becomes uncannily known again in the present, only to become unknown again at the end of the performance. Each of my performances is a mythopoetic product of organic processes which depend not only on the different modes of my body's sensory perception of unambiguous (i.e. explicit and literal) and ambiguous (i.e. implicit and metaphorical) processes and events taking place in my multisensory perceptions of the sensible world; but also on the individual (mental and bodily sensory) and collective (cultural) memory-images I derive from both these different modes of perception and my diasporic experiences. "

Damoah cites Judy Chicago, Jean-Michel Basquiat, David Hammons, Yves Klein, Sokari Douglas Camp, Rachel Ara and Ana Mendieta among her main influences. She is a founding member of the Black British Female Artists (BBFA) Collective and the Intersectional Feminist Art (InFems) Collective. Damoah currently lives in London, UK.

Solo Exhibitions

2021

2020

2018

2015

2011

2009

2008

2006

Group Exhibitions

2021

2020

2019

2018

2017

2016

2015

2009

2007

2006

2005


Stay connected

If you would like to follow our activities, please sign up for our newsletter. Enter your first and last name as well as your email address below. In compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), we will send you an email validating your submission. You need to confirm your registration in that email before it can be processed by us ("double opt-in"). You can opt out of receiving our newsletter at any time by unsubscribing via the link in the footer of each mailing.