Gallery 1957 launched the first ever dedicated art prize for women artists living and working in Africa: The Yaa Asantewaa Art Prize in 2021.

 
Named after the prominent Ghanaian Queen Mother, the prize aims to fortify Gallery 1957's commitment to supporting and uplifting emerging and established artists across Ghana and the diaspora. The prize is open exclusively to Ghanaian women artists either living in Ghana or across its diaspora. In the future, we look forward to expanding the prize to include all African and African diaspora identifying artists.  
 
  • 'Listening and working closely with our local community, we have identified a need to support particularly women artists in Ghana....
     From Left to Right: Leila Zakhem, Omenaa Mensah, Fatric Bewong, Theresah Ankomah, and Denyse Gawu Mensah at the 2025 Prize Ceremony
    'Listening and working closely with our local community, we have identified a need to support particularly women artists in Ghana. In creating The Yaa Asantewaa Art Prize, we hope to offer a way in which to address the lack of existing support for women and women identifying artists in the country, and its diaspora. Beyond the financial support, the goal is to give participating shortlisted artists a platform for their work, and exposure worldwide.' - Marwan Zakhem, Founder of Gallery 1957
  • Gallery 1957 congratulates Theresah Ankomah who emerged as first place, Gifty Amoateng as first runner-up and Fatric Bewong second runner-up in the fifth edition of the prize in 2025. The winner is currently in an artist residency and will have a solo exhibition at Gallery 1957.

     

     
  • Theresah Ankomah, Prize Recipient
     

    Theresah Ankomah

    Prize Recipient
    (b. 1989, Accra)
    Theresah Ankomah is a multidisciplinary Ghanaian Artist, who lives and works between Accra, Dabala and Kumasi. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Art and a Master of Fine Art in Sculpture from the College of Art and Built Environment, from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Kumasi, Ghana. Ankomah’s socially engaged practice extends into sculpture, installations, weaving, fashion and printmaking. She uses her work to interrogate the politics of materiality, everyday objects, and women’s labour. At the center of her work is a sustained engagement with weaving, particularly with kenaf basket and palm leaves. This practice is rooted in Ghanaian communities and has long association with domesticity and subsistence. 
     
    In 2021, Theresah won the second runner-up for the Inaugural Yaa Asantewaa Art Prize in Ghana by Gallery 1957 and the 2017 first runner-up for the Kuenyehia Art Prize for Contemporary Art in Ghana respectively. Theresah’s work was featured in Hammer Museum's curator Erin Christovale’s Top Ten 2021 highlight for Art Forum’sDecember 2021 issue. She has also participated in major group shows inBrazil,Germany, Switzerland, France,United Kingdom, South Africa, Denmark, Ghana, Australia, Dubia, Nigeria, and the United States.
  • Gifty Amoateng, First Runner Up
     

    Gifty Amoateng

    First Runner Up
    (b.  Germany)
    Gifty Amoateng is a Berlin-based textile and material designer who lives and works between Berlin and Kumasi. She is currently completing her BA in Textile and Material Design at weißensee kunsthochschule berlin, where she has also worked as a student assistant and tutor since 2020.
    Amoateng’s interdisciplinary practice combines textiles, photography, sound, and digital processes. Drawing on pre-colonial traditions of oral storytelling and intergenerational memory, she creates material translations of silence, absence, and diasporic experience. Through digital knitting, experimental archives, and material narratives, she investigates how textiles can function as vessels for presence, care, and resistance. Working between Berlin and Kumasi, her work explores how memory and identity are carried across places, and how absence itself can become material for artistic creation. 
    In 2024, Amoateng was awarded a grant by The Supporting Act, an initiative by WePresent / WeTransfer supporting emerging artists and underrepresented perspectives across Europe. Other recognitions include the EXIST-Women Programme (2024), a residency at Akademie Schloss Solitude & Goethe-Institut Namibia (2023), and the Mart Stam Germany Scholarship (2018). She is currently co-developing off:hybrid, a BIPoC-led art and design space in Berlin dedicated to fostering collaboration, visibility, and accessible infrastructures for underrepresented voices in the arts.
  • Fatric Bewong, Second Runner Up
     

    Fatric Bewong

    Second Runner Up
    Fatric Bewong is a Ghanaian interdisciplinary artist living and working in Accra, Ghana. Her practice spans the field, studio, and community. She sculpts with repurposed materials, fabric offcuts, discarded lottery papers, and other reclaimed objects, transforming them into vibrant large-scale works with a sense of sublime possibility. Through sourcing, cutting, weaving, and binding, she creates magical spaces and mysterious forms that invite imagination.
    She manifests her working through paintings, collage, site specific installations, and performance. Her research explores environment, family, and motherhood, examining how personal and collective histories shape our ties to the world. By using discarded materials, she critiques consumerism and highlights cycles of use, waste, and renewal. Her focus on family and motherhood elevates narratives of care, memory, healing, and inheritance, giving intimate stories universal resonance and prompting reflection on our ecological and emotional relationships.
    Bewong’s work is held in the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ghana, The Dei Centre, Ice Project Space, and private collections such as those of El Anatsui, Professor Ablade Glover, Lawrence Bascom, Antonious Roberts, and Captain Monroe. She has participated in numerous international workshops, residencies, and group exhibitions. She earned Fine Art degrees from Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology and the University of Hartford, and holds a postgraduate education in education from Valley View University. Bewong is a member of FCA-Ghana and blaxTARLINES KUMASI.
  • 2025 Jury Panel

    2025 Jury Panel

    The 2025 winner was selected by a jury of international experts:

     

    Ms Omenaa Mensah, Philanthropist, Art Collector, Member of Tate Modern’s Africa Acquisitions Committee 

    Nana Sao, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Africa Capitalworks

    Yesomi Umolu, Arts leader, writer, curator and cultural strategist

    Prof. Dr. Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung,  Curator, Author and Biotechnologist

    Aindrea Emelife, Curator and Art Historian

    Othman Lazraq, Multidisciplinary Creative Entrepreneur and Founding Director of MACAAL

     

  • PRESS