BETTY ACQUAH | Berj Art Gallery | Ghanaian Artist

Betty Acquah was born in Cape Coast in the Central Region of Ghana on 20th March, 1965. After attending Wesley Girls' High and Holy Child Schools in Cape Coast, she proceeded to the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana where she obtained a First Class in the B. A. Hons (Art) Degree course. She later pursued the M. F. A. (Painting) Degree programme in the same University after an interim Professional Art course at the Tokyo School of Art (T. S. A.), Tokyo, Japan. The artist worked at The Centre for National Culture and Berj Art Galleries both in Accra, Ghana. Being one of the foremost female painters in Ghana, Betty maintains that women are the unsung heroines of our time.

The images she depicts tell of ordinary women working courageously. The trials, ambitions, celebrations and successes of ordinary women form the central theme of her rich and florid canvasses. She also portrays themes such as dancers, musicians, landscapes and abstracts.  She uses the pointillist technique for her oil and acrylic paintings. She normally begins her work with a little sketch of the subject matter in a sketchpad. She employs shadows and points to tell magnificent feminine issues in artistic forms.

Betty paints on canvas. She places different colours at random on primed canvas. She then gives it a second coat of one particular colour depending on the theme. She later transfers the sketch onto the canvas by making tiny, almost invisible, dots with a darkish colour.

Betty has participated in exhibitions in Ghana as well as abroad. Her first solo exhibition was at PAFAM  (Pan African Festival of Arts and Music) which was held at the Trade Fair grounds in Accra. It was quickly followed by another one at the then AMAHEMA Art Gallery. she later joined a four-man show which featured already famous Ghanaian painters, Amon Kotei (who was the designer of the Coat of Arms of Ghana), Professor Ablade Glover (now owner of the Artists Alliance Gallery) and Tafa Fiadzigbe (who now lives and paints in the U. S. A.). Her works have also been exhibited in India, Japan, Nigeria, Spain, U.K. and U. S. A.  She currently works at Berj Art Gallery and exhibits her paintings around the world.

She exhibited at Nubuke Foundation in July, 2009 at Rendezvous.