Evans Torngmortey

Evans Torngmortey Akornor is a Ghanaian contemporary artist (b. 2001) in Ningo, a typical coastal village and a suburb of Tema in the Greater Accra region of Ghana. Received a BFA in painting and sculpture at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology and is a member of the blaxTARLINES collective Kumasi. Growing up in a typical coastal village, Akornor started paying peculiar attention to the idea of community as a motherboard for a series of other peripheral schemes like chaos, coincidence, and the idea of the “everyday"nuanced within the sea and the shorelines as a physical space to breed possibilities. Akornor uses painting as a point of entry into an exploration of materials and techniques that are foreign to conventional art making.

Certain traits of the fishermen, the behavioral qualities of the metallic tools and materials used in fishing, sound, the continued invasion of people, and certain extractive culture within this community inform contextually his wide-ranging artistic practice. Akornor primarily incorporates unconventional materials like seawater, fishing nets, fishing ropes, anchors, and fishing sinkers into his work. While Akornor considers himself a painter, his artistic practice skirts, performances, video installations, sound installations, and spoken word poetry.

He's an artist who consistently broadens his collection of influences, inspirations, and communities while recognizing the significant impact of art history on his creative process.