How Ghanaian-Canadian Lego Sculptor is Making the Colour Black More Visible with His Art

• Ekow Nimako is a Ghanaian-Canadian Lego sculptor producing fine art with Black Lego bricks to make Black art more visible
• The 42-year-old artist has built a trickster deity in the form of a spider, a flower girl holding a giant bee, and a Ghanaian kingdom in the year 3020
• Nimako blends Africanfuturism, Afrofuturism, and Afrofantasy to connect with the African continent and African-American experiences

Ghanaian-Canadian artist, Ekow Nimako, is a sculptor who uses Legos bricks to produce fine art to make Black art more visible.

The beings he creates are ''unequivocally Black'', with the focus on elevating Black art into the limelight.

Besides this goal, he also likes the colour because he thinks there's something sophisticated about it.

With that mindset, he wants to help dismiss the notion that there's something dark and sometimes foreboding or haunting about black.

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How it all started

Nimako kicked off two years after he started making Lego sculptures in 2012 when he received a grant to showcase his work in Canada during Black History Month.

For 42-year-old Nimako, Lego is more than just a kids' toy; he has built a trickster deity in the form of a spider, a flower girl holding a giant bee, and a Ghanaian kingdom in the year 3020 with only black Legos.

He built his first human sculpture called "Flower Girl'' in 2014 to highlight the innocence lost of young Black girls that didn't get a chance to be like traditional flower girls in the West.

The art spoke ''to the girls that came here due to the transatlantic slave trade," he said, according to CNN.

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Drawing inspiration from the past and future

Nimako, who considers himself a "futurist" artist, draws inspiration from Africanfuturism, which focuses on the experience of those on the African continent, and taps into Afrofuturism, which is about the African-American experience of looking into the future.

The artist hopes for an "inclusive future" that does not dismiss or minimise the history of anti-Black racism, how disruptive it was, and recognises the role of Afrofuturism in allowing people to "envision a better world''.

Ghanaian muralist lands major deal with Tommy Hilfiger

YEN.com.gh previously reported that Ghanaian figurative and portraiture painter Annan Affotey landed a deal with American fashion brand Tommy Hilfiger for the company's new TommyXRomeo collection mural project.

The UK-based Ghanaian painter's love for cultural diversity is easily recognised in his portraits, which earned him the attention of the international powerhouse fashion brand.

Shaped by his experiences living in Ghana, Europe, and the United States, Affortey uses his signature style of bold colours, thick paint, and red eyes to portray emotion and identity, said a message issued on the company's website.

Source: YEN.com.gh