Theresah Ankomah is an artist who lives and works in Accra, Ghana. Her artistic expressions manifest in the form of performative Installations, Sculpture, Painting, Weaving, Fashion, and Printmaking.
In recent times, she has been interested in exploring Kenaf woven baskets, strings, jute rope and royal palm leafs at all levels and scales of weaving while at the same time examining the hidden stories associated with the making of these objects. Her interest also lies in how their usage is susceptible to temporality as well as permanence. She uses the complexities of weaving to discover and tell these untold stories.
Theresah engages in the material culture of these objects, researching into the incredible ways this culture interweaves in the nuanced lives of the people who make and use it.
The objects she uses in her installations are marked by time and they build a database of DNA and fingerprints of their makers and the audience who engages with it, which becomes a tapestry of different experiences. She believes these objects are living archive of experiences captured in a time capsule yet to be noticed.
Theresah was the recipient of the 2021 second runner up prize of the Inaugural Yaa Asantewaa Art Prize in Africa by Gallery 1957 and also the recipient of the 2017 first runner up prize of the prestigious Kuenyehia Art Prize for Contemporary Art in Ghana, respectively.
Her work, ‘The Shrine’ is in the permanent collections of the Kuenyehia Trust, ‘Connecting the Why and the Not’ is also in the permanent collections of the European Union Delegation to Ghana.
Her work has been included in publications and exhibitions such as the MasterCard Foundation’s Art Book on Hope, Energy and Ingenuity: Voices of African Youth (2018),
Erin Christovale Top Ten Best of 2021 in the December issue of Art Forum, How I Made This: Theresah Ankomah’s Repurposed Produce Baskets, 2021, ART news, Ghanaian Artisanal Design Rewoven, 2021, Atmos. Women as the Centre: Art X Feminism, Nubuke Foundation, Accra (2020), Urban Future, Nubuke Foundation, Accra (2020)
In Dialogue, Alliance Francaise Accra (2021), Ruins, Space and Expression: The Ruins of Our ‘Self’, Notre Galerie, (2021), Look at We, Nubuke Foundation (2021), Atrium Installations, Wood Society of the Art, Dubia Expo (2021), All Africa Festival by Efie Gallery, Burj Plaza, Dubia Expo (2021), Monologue of Voices, Takoradi, Ghana (2021).
She has also participated in a couple of workshops which includes Artivity: The knock on Wood Edition, Societe Generale Ghana, Creative Accelerator program, E be Art we go chop! the role of Arts and Cultural Entrepreneurs in developing Ghana, Experiential therapy at Nkyinkyim Museum just to mention but a few.