Artist Statement
I create recurring figures that function as spirits, messengers, and witnesses within an evolving mythology shaped by memory, belief, and imagination.
These figures are not based on specific people. They emerge from a mix of dreams, personal experiences, stories, spiritual ideas, and observations of everyday life in Ghana. Over time, they have become inhabitants of a world where the boundaries between the visible and invisible are less certain.
Working across sculpture, installation, painting, photography, and film, I use these characters to think about how people relate to objects, symbols, and unseen forces. I am interested in the ways ordinary things can carry emotional, spiritual, or cultural meaning, and how those meanings change over time.
Many of the figures I create appear neither male nor female, human nor spirit. They exist somewhere in between. Through them, I can build spaces where different realities, beliefs, and possibilities can exist together.
My work does not aim to explain things directly. Instead, it creates room for viewers to bring their own experiences, questions, and interpretations. What interests me most is the moment when something familiar begins to feel mysterious, and when an object, image, or figure starts to suggest a life beyond what is immediately visible.
Biography
Nana Danso is a Ghanaian visual artist based in Accra. Working across sculpture, installation, painting, photography, and film, he creates imagined worlds inhabited by recurring figures, symbolic objects, and unseen forces.
His work draws from everyday life, Ghanaian culture, memory, spirituality, dreams, and personal imagination. Through a cast of non-binary characters, he builds narratives that blur the line between the visible and invisible, the familiar and the unknown.
Rather than telling fixed stories, his work invites viewers into spaces where different meanings can exist at the same time. Across his practice, he is interested in how people assign meaning to objects, places, and symbols, and how belief shapes the way we understand the world around us.
CV
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2024 From Soul to Humanity: A retrospective of works from 2018-2024, La Art Foundation for The Arts, Accra 2021 The History of Ghana, Gallery 1957, Accra 2018 Start end Performance, The Studio, Accra 2017 The eye witness, The Container Accra 2016 Cherries and gloom, Coco vanilla, Accra
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2026 Atlas of uncertainty, Wits origins museum, Johannesburg. 2024 Communal Bond, Affinity Gallery, Lagos.
2023 A divination of enjoyment: extended play, The Mix, Accra.
2022 Black Googler Network, Black History Month Exhibition, Google headquarters, London.
2021 Stations of protest, Nubuke Foundation, Accra. 2021 Our Difference Make Us The Same Performance, SaisonAfrica, Paris.
2020 Beyond Covid, Open House Studio, Accra.
2018 Amongst Us Installation, Afrochella Festival, Accra.
2018 KM group, Secret Garden, Cantonment. 2017 Art water, Elle Lokko Warehouse, Accra. 2016 Aboriginal symmetry, Chalewote Street Art Festival, Accra
RESIDENCIES
2021 Artist in Residence, The Gallery 1957, Accra. 2023 Artist in Residence, NkyimKyim museum, Accra. 2025 Artist in Residence, La Fourchette de Roze, Bassam. 2025 Artist in Residence, Villa Karo, Grand popo, Benin.
PROJECTS
2017 GH Skate Tour, Surf Ghana
2021 Observers NFT, An African utility nft project.
2021 Act, The Ones who Film, Directed by Amarachi Nwosu
2022 Clothing collaboration, Osei Duro 2022 TedX Accra: Agents of Change, University of Ghana, Accra
2024 Off-White SS25 Fall Collection Collaboration Duty Free , New York
TEACHING
2017 Visiting Tutor, Achimota college , Art dept. 2018 Visiting Tutor, Ashesi University , Design Lab
2023 Visiting Tutor, Tender Mercy Care Foundation Workshops, Manso