PLATO

We were all immigrants trying to find our way through this city and formed friendly paths.

Kwesi O. Kwarteng

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Plato is elated to announce the solo exhibition of Kwesi O. Kwarteng, Friendly Paths, opening on Thursday, March 27 with a public reception from 6 to 8pm.​

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Kwesi O. Kwarteng’s textile paintings evoke historical and contemporary precedents: traditional weaving practices of Ghana, the artistry of African American quilts, El Anatsui’s bottle cap tapestries, Sam Gilliam’s fabric dying experiments, Mark Rothko’s color-blocked canvases and Barnett Newman’s “zip” paintings. One might even draw a comparison to Kazimir Malevich’s Suprematist compositions, also resembling aerial views. Less concerned with Suprematism’s denial of objective forms or deeply personal explorations of Color Field painting, Kwarteng’s work chiefly reflects his profound interest in multiculturalism.​

 

The title of the show, Friendly Paths, is inspired by Kwarteng’s early experience as an immigrant from Ghana meeting kindred spirits and forming meaningful friendships in the multicultural communities of New York and New Jersey. Trained as a painter, he tirelessly searched for a resonant way to express his appreciation for the diversity and interconnectedness around him while being true to his roots. The artist’s eventual attempts to incorporate Kente cloth from his native Ghana into traditional canvas, dating back to 2012, proved revelatory and have led to years of discoveries and experimentation with both the fabrics he sources from around the world and those he dyes in his studio. Recently, Kwarteng has also been exploring local dyeing techniques. For instance, he has colored all his black fabric in a Ghanaian village called Ntonso.

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Kwarteng’s studio is immersed in color, with almost the entirety of the floor covered with a motley mess of textiles. His palette is a multilayered shelf filled with a multitude of fabrics: some picked up on his extensive travels, others brought by caring friends familiar with his practice. With a natural sense of color, the artist intuitively chooses the textile swatches he combines, essentially equating his process to painting with fabric and sewing machine rather than paints and brushes.

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Each material carries a cultural resonance, reflecting the regional tastes, traditions and techniques often formed over centuries and passed down from generation to generation. Joined together, they reveal similar sensibilities across countries and continents or form unexpected connections: Indonesian batik “speaking” to an Indian saree, Japanese Kimono fabric accentuated by Ecuadorian Macana. These works provide a lesson in multicultural harmony: varying in patterns and texture, the swatches form curvy, zigzaggy rivers flowing across or along the canvases, with occasional accents of variously shaped “islands.” Lines of stitches running through the fabric possibly suggest land and maritime borders. Unlike their real-world equivalents, these borders join the fabric of the work rather than dividing it, and rivers of cultural dialogues overflow the edges, suggesting a three-dimensional, ever-evolving world as a counterbalance to rigid man-made maps and arbitrary state divisions. Drawing on his personal experience, Kwarteng transcribes a new language that investigates the intricacies of multiculturalism and suggests a possibility of a peaceful cultural coexistence.

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Kwesi O. Kwarteng (b. 1988, Accra, Ghana) holds a Bachelors of Fine Arts from the School of Visual Arts and is a current resident at Silver Arts Project in New York, NY.  His recent solo exhibitions include Cowrie Culture, Accra, Ghana (2022); Between Two Rivers, New York, NY (2015). His work has been shown in The Montclair Art Museum, Montclair, NJ (2025); The Hunterdon Art Museum, Clinton, NJ (2025); and Plato Gallery, New York (2025); Newark Museum of Art, Newark, NJ, (2024); Imlay Gallery, New York, NY (2023); Out Left Gallery, New York, NY (2022); and Cowrie Culture, Accra, Ghana, (2022), among others. He has been the recipient of several awards, including the New Jersey State Council on the Arts Crafts Fellow Finalist Grant (2025), the City of Newark’s Creative Catalyst Grant (2020-2022) and the Silas H. Rhodes Family Award (2014).