In 2015, Patrick Quarm left his native Ghana to pursue a Master’s in Painting and Drawing at Texas Tech University, immersing himself in a culture very different from that which he was used to. The experience would eventually inspire a set of mixed-media and mixed-material paintings now on view in his solo show, “Phantoms in Familiar Terrain,” at albertz benda in New York.
“I have been interested in the idea of hybrid identity, having a dual identity and living in between or existing in between multiple cultural spaces. And navigating the idea of finding belonging, and figuring out how to maneuver within these spaces,” Quarm told Observer from his home base in Ghana.
He now lives and works in both West Africa and the United States, and several works in the show acknowledge the connections and disconnections that are an everyday reality for those living between cultures and geographies. A multi-layered oil and acrylic done on African print fabric, Echoes of Then and Now, was, according to Quarm, inspired by a photo he took while reminiscing with friends he had not seen in person for several years due to his time out of the country.
One Mind Two Frames, also oil and acrylic on print fabric, delves into the idea of a person having one origin but fitting in two different spaces. “It’s one individual, but he belongs to two frames. You can see him through a Western lens. You can see him through the African lens. When both lenses come together, he still belongs. The idea is that you can belong to any frame or any culture and still coexist peacefully” explained Quarm.
He describes himself as a lifelong artist and said he was exposed to African print textiles at a young age because his mother sewed at home as a hobby—“wearing clothes with the fabric was her thing.” He added that “there was always that connection with the fabric, but I had no idea it was going to end up in my work.”
During his undergraduate studies at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Kumasi, in the Ashanti region of Ghana, Quarm studied the material. While it’s called ‘African fabric,’ he learned during his research that it originated in present-day Indonesia, laying bare its dual identity.
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That knowledge stayed on top of the artist’s mind, culminating in the decision to include African fabric in his work in the second year. He became much more aware of his culture during his time away from home, and he was fascinated by the idea of materials physically crossing borders, just like he had. Following a process that included experimentation and “a series of errors,” the artist landed on his signature style: painting over perforated African wax fabric.
The works in “Phantoms in Familiar Terrain” are cohesive in appearance when viewed from a distance, but layers reveal themselves upon closer inspection. Looking at the paintings from different angles can also be revelatory, according to the artist. People who see the paintings in person “have to move around it to kind of see what is hidden, what’s in disguise, what it reveals,” he said. “And if you look at the painting, it also has all these punch holes or like circular cuts within it. And for me, it leads to the question: when you punch holes through history, what do you uncover?” The fabric he uses in his work also carries cultural and political significance, including the material’s historical connection to Dutch colonial legacy.
“It’s like a universal open book—I try to invite people from all cultures to stand in front of my paintings and think through their own experiences with cultural hybridity,” Quarm concluded. “I’m trying to start a conversation.”
Patrick Quarm’s “Phantoms in Familiar Terrain” is on view at albertz benda, New York, through February 1.
