It's always challenging to work on a perfect square. Set against my recent work you can see how far I have come from this familiarity with my means, my materials - handling, working with them in a way that it becomes second nature. RL: It has an abstract quality. AK: It still has an abstract quality. Detugbi means beauty - when you are making something you are confrinted with transformeing or translating it in some way. In African art most people would use markings or lines or stripes to embellish or make something beautiful - it's in the language or linguitsic - it's how poeple communicate. Interesting how someone speaks a language they immedialey relate something relating to status or cash - its a metaphor for the way that people can make their abodes beautiful or bring beauty to the way they organise their architectural space. They think in the same wya that they think when they weave cloth, so something beautiful or handsome is well shaped. A battered instrument - guitar or xylophone - you can still get somehting beautiful out of it - tones the way it is played. Becuase it's mat now you can see it for what it is - it's aged - balance of monumentality and harmony working together. To derive simplicity you have to go the extra miles - in order to be simple.

Atta Kwami

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