Not every artist who skyrockets to fame makes it all the way into space. But that was the case for Amoako Boafo who, three years after his big break, painted three panels on the top of Jeff Bezos’s rocket ship. “I’ll be honest, I just did it for the experience,” says the Ghanaian artist, whose triptych blasted off in August 2021 and returned (intact) after an 11-minute round trip. If the opportunity should arise, would he ever be interested in taking a tour himself? “No, I like it here,” he replies, tapping the ground with his green Dior trainers.
Boafo’s artistic breakthrough came when his effervescent portraits celebrating Black life caught the eye of Kehinde Wiley on Instagram in 2018. Wiley, the African American artist best-known for painting Barack Obama, tipped off his galleries, and before long Boafo’s canvases, which he began exhibiting in hotel lobbies back home in Accra, were appearing at international art fairs and fetching up to seven figures at auction. A spring/summer collection in collaboration with Dior designer Kim Jones followed in 2021, and in 2022 he was picked up by mega-dealer Larry Gagosian, who has referred to him as “the future of portraiture”. His first solo UK show has just opened at Gagosian’s largest London outpost.
