Art can be found in almost every corner of Accra from neighborhood churches, schools and pubs to street stalls, barber shops and corporate campaigns. Art is serious business. In fact, traditional street art plays an influential part in the advertising history of Ghana. This street art features on large boards painted with images of popular individuals such as President John Dramani Mahama, Barack Obama, Michael Essien and many others or sometimes it just depicts everyday scenes of life in Ghana – exaggerated to a humorous effect.
Advertising in Ghana can be traced back to the 1920s, long before the country gained independence. Traditional healers and herbalists used the art of illusion as a form of advertisement to enhance the selling of their products. Employing the magic of performance, these practitioners used the techniques of song and dance, and sometimes, wild snakes to arouse the viewers’ curiosity. During the 1970s, Ghanaians started adopting a more modern form advertisement, incorporating printing and public address systems. As Ghana shifted between multiple military regimes throughout the seventies, the equipment needed to produce industrial ads was hard to come by. The cost effective and highly customizable practice of using painters to create unique commercial ads sprouted and continues to be the most popular mode for promoting goods and services. Shop owners still contract traditional artists to paint their shops, kiosks, cars and signage.
In the late eighties, Ghanaian businesses began shooting TV and radio commercials. More recently the introduction of digital media in Ghana has threatened the viability of traditional street art. This can clearly be seen in the city of Accra, as more local businesses are mounting digital billboards and signs to sell their branded products and services. Ad jobs are increasingly going the digital route, leaving street artists without viable employment. Antwi Boasiako is a 48-year-old local street artist in Dzorwulu. His gallery is under a tree by the Abelenkpe traffic light. Boasiako has been painting for 20 years and he believes digital media is taking away his customers. The number of paintings he would complete annually has been reduced by half.
[blockquote source=”Percy Yanyi-Ampah, a street artist at Boyz 2 Men Art”]“Now all the advertising works and signage are being done with computers and big printing machines. People don’t bring their works here any more. They want them fast so they send them to the big companies,”[/blockquote]
It’s not a completely bleak picture. Even with competition from digital media advertisers, mobile entrepreneurs and small-scale businesses are still patronizing the works of these traditional street artists. International tourists are also enthusiastic about these collectibles, with some of them working to establish business links with the artists, in order to export their art, mostly to Europe and North America. As Boasiako says, “I get white people who still patronize my work. I have created business links with some and so they buy some of my works and show it in galleries abroad.” He says some local chop spots, bars, hotels, and even construction companies still call him to paint on their buildings and vehicles although sometimes, while customers still request his painting services, he’s often asked to copy an existing image rather than create a unique visual statement.
This very compromise has driven some street artists to take up the study of digital printing and graphic design as a way to find and maintain work. A traditional sign writer in Accra New Town, Gift Asamoah thinks the reason why people are going digital is because the production process is faster compared to painting. He says he has started a designing course at a computer school in his neighborhood. With a little computer education, he’ll be able to do more work in a shorter timeframe, since it’s faster to design with a computer.
Eunice Annan is a former traditional artist who now owns a printing and designing studio. She started painting some 14 years ago after completing high school. She acknowledges that the street art business has, literally, fallen by the roadside. If she hadn’t joined the digital trend, she might have ended up unemployed.
[blockquote source=”Eunice Annan”]“People don’t buy the paintings anymore, and signboard jobs are also not coming. Everybody is going for the computer jobs. They think it is fast and more affordable. After sometime, I realized I had to get some education on how to design and print, and I’m now getting more jobs.”[/blockquote]
But Percy and Boasiako do not agree with Eunice entirely. They believe demand for traditional art has gone down but it has not collapsed. If some components of digital media are adopted and combined with traditional art, they can compete equally with the digital media artists.
With the changing trends and the fast evolution of technology, traditional street artists in Ghana can only stay in business if they digitize some aspects of their work. Some of the street artists are now painting in 3D as a way to keep up with the quick design pace of digital media. With the digitization of certain aspects of traditional forms of Ghanaian art, street art will continue to exist and interact, in new ways, with digital media.
An expanded version of this post was written by NANA OSEI KWADWO and originally appeared at Accra dot ALT. It is republished with permission.
Africa Redux Founder Chi Kaitano.
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