Otis Kwame Kye Quaicoe - Where the Waters Meet: Gallery II, Accra

In Where the Waters Meet, Otis Quaicoe returns to Ghana with a body of work that celebrates black leisure, joy, and the radical act of rest. Marking his first solo exhibition in his country of birth, this homecoming is also a meditation on water—its capacity to hold us, to offer respite, and its particular significance for black bodies navigating histories of exclusion and belonging. Here, pools and oceans become sites of reclamation, spaces where pleasure is not only possible but essential.

 

Currently based in the United States, Quaicoe describes Ghana as his peace — a space of clarity, lightness, and deep connection. Here, surrounded by family, friends, and familiar rhythms, his creative process shifts. It becomes weightless, instinctive, and free. This new body of work embraces that feeling: an exploration of imagined spaces of play, rest, and ease. This sense of freedom extends to his process and palette. Quaicoe works in a tonal range of black and grey, building the skin of his subjects through layered contrasts that give their forms a sculptural presence. His brushwork is multidirectional, strokes flowing together and apart like waves meeting and parting, echoing the movement of water itself throughout the canvas.