Jeremiah Quarshie

Acquired directly from the artist by the present owner

Ghanaian artist Jeremiah Quarshie reinterprets the definition of power in the present lot, with Nigerian entrepreneur Tokini Peterside sitting confidently with a power generating set by her side. This work is a poignant reference to the epileptic power supply synonymous with the Nigerian state. Budding entrepreneurs like Peterside, founder of the art fair Art X Lagos, must rely on generators to power their businesses in a country where poor power supply has crippled many promising ventures.

"What I'm doing with [the Dynamics of Power] project is to capture powerful people alongside powerful objects. If you have a generator and you have your fuel, that's light. So it's a powerful object that many people have to survive on."

A graduate of Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in Kumasi, Quarshie uses a hyper-realistic painting style to examine the notion of constructed imagery, to investigate the nature of art itself. Using the ‘politics of painting’ and its traditional formalistic concerns as metaphors, he displays an acute social awareness in examining the connection between people who have previously been historically and culturally divided. These divisions have occurred because of social, economic or geographical conditions that have manifested on the African continent.