Title: Nyimpadua II
Artist Name: Agnes Mensah Onumah
Medium: Mixed media (sand and acrylic on canvas)
Dimensions: 36 × 24 × 1 inches each (series of 5)
Year of Completion: 2026
ARTIST STATEMENT
Nyimpadua II is a practice-led visual inquiry comprising five interconnected works—Konde, Daadze Asa, Mesere Nyame, Obi nka n’asem, and Kaya—grounded in Indigenous Knowledge Systems and cultural preservation. Situated within Ghana’s contemporary condition of intersecting cultural, ecological, and spiritual crises, the series engages broader global conditions of polycrisis, exploring how indigenous epistemologies offer strategies of resilience, continuity, and resistance.
Rooted in a family history marked by recurrent childhood mortality, locally referred to as Awombawu, the project draws on Akan situational naming traditions developed as spiritual interventions against death. Within Akan cosmology, naming functions as a metaphysical and protective act, encoding grief, resistance, and ancestral resilience while sustaining collective memory across generations.
The compositions are anchored by central raised mask forms derived from African ritual aesthetics, functioning as both spiritual vessels and symbolic archives of ancestral presence. Through relief rendering, each work establishes a dialogue between Adinkra symbols and situational names: Owu Atwer with Konde, Asaase Ye Dur with Daadze Asa, Gye Nyame with Mesere Nyame, Eya with Obi nka n’asem, and Akoben with Kaya. Each pairing represents one piece within the series, collectively evoking themes of mortality, endurance, reverence, vigilance, and historical trauma while preserving fragments of Akan cultural memory.
The black surface represents the essence of human existence—a shared interior space that transcends racial, religious, and political differences. It reflects the universal shadow of grief and the pain of losing a loved one, uniting humanity through emotional and spiritual depth. From this darkness, golden Adinkra symbols emerge as luminous markers of wisdom and continuity.
Materially, the embossed mask incorporates sand as a meditation on mortality and return, reflecting the cyclical nature of life. Its tactile surface draws viewers into close proximity, extending the work beyond visual perception and creating an inclusive sensory experience for visually impaired audiences. Guided by Sankofaism, the work retrieves ancestral knowledge as a strategy for cultural survival, spiritual reclamation, and collective transformation.
Onumajuru art
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Visual art,modeling and teaching
26/10/2025
Title: The Color of Humanity,2025
Size: 42.0 cm × 59.cm
Medium: Photograph
Location: South Africa
Artist: Agnes Mensah Onumah
In The Color of Humanity, I turn to shadows—those silent, borderless forms that speak no language of race, class, or religion. Shadows reveal a deeper truth: that beneath the surface, we are all made of the same essence.
This work reflects on a time when our ancestors met the first Westerners not with fear, but with dignity, respect, and sacred hospitality. They saw fellow human beings. Looking at the strangers’ shadows, they saw a match—proof of shared humanity. There was no prejudice, only recognition.
But that gaze was not returned. The Westerners saw not people, but land, gold, and power. Their vision, shaped by greed and conquest, refused to acknowledge the humanity that welcomed them. What was offered in good faith was met with betrayal and dehumanization.
Through layered silhouettes of diverse figures, this piece becomes both a mirror and a memorial. It honors the clarity with which our ancestors saw humanity—without needing skin color to define worth—and mourns the violence of being unseen in return.
At its heart, The Color of Humanity asks: What does it mean to see someone truly? And what is lost when we don’t? This is a reclamation of that original truth—that we saw them as human, even when they refused to see us. Africa will rise again.
Beads mosaic
11/09/2025
Series Statement: The Tithe
The Tithe is a series that wrestles with the fractures of faith, land, and memory in Africa’s colonial encounter. Drawing from Matthew 23:23—where Christ rebukes empty ritual that neglects justice, mercy, and faith—the works interrogate the hypocrisy of missionary and mining enterprises that demanded offerings of devotion while exacting a tithe of blood and earth. Beneath the sermons of salvation lay systems of extraction, desecration, and silencing of African spiritual worlds.
The central masks, raised in relief, emerge as witnesses: at once mourning the erasures of history and standing as monuments of resilience. Surrounding them, the Adinkra symbol Epa—meaning “handcuffs” or “bondage”—is reconfigured into a visual refrain. It speaks of captivity and false restitution, of justice preached but deferred. Yet, in repetition, the motif also gestures toward reclamation, a breaking of cycles, a call to spiritual restitution.
Across the series, sand and acrylic echo the ground itself—wounded, yet enduring. Each canvas becomes both altar and archive: an offering to the Mother, the Earth, whose body bore the weight of conquest. The Tithe reclaims sacred ground by transforming artistic practice into offering—a tithe not of coin, but of color, memory, and witness, returned to the ancestors and to the silenced shrines of Africa.
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The series reads as one ritual act of witness:
• The Tithe (mourning + witness)
• The Tithe 2 (appeasement + reclamation)
Celebrating my 1st year on Facebook. Thank you for your continuing support. I could never have made it without you. 🙏🤗🎉
31/08/2025
The world would have been a better place if we understood that at the end of the day “The Earth Devours “ everything and everyone we are fighting for.
Made By: Agnes,Kirimi,Maleeha and Tatenda
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