Otis Kwame Kye Quaicoe

Roberts Projects is pleased to present Hall of Fame, a new series of paintings and photographs by Otis Kwame Kye Quaicoe celebrating the rich legacy of boxing in his homeland of Ghana.

In his 2002 essay “Bukom and the Social History of Boxing in Accra,” African scholar and historian Emmanuel Akyeampong attributes the early-20th century popularity of boxing to the colonial occupation of Ghana by England—an amalgamation of African and British sociopolitics that took the form of sporting culture. What developed was a unique hybrid of boxing that combined the indigenous African tradition of asafo atwele—the Ga term for group fighting—with Western-style boxing and global commercial enterprise. In Accra’s present urban landscape there is a prize fighter blossoming in every local amateur, and this is precisely what Quaicoe aims to capture.

Quaicoe grew up in Ghana’s capital, Accra, surrounded by villages that have long been united in their devotion to local boxing culture—symbolizing a path that could transcend circumstances of systemic poverty. On each canvas, the artist captures the determined gaze of amateur boxers from Bukom, a neighborhood mythologized as the birthplace of featherweight champion Azumah Nelson and welterweight champion Ike Quartey, now home to some of the nation’s most prominent boxing gyms and training facilities. On a recent visit to Accra, Quaicoe absorbed Bukom’s spirit to record the dynamic personas of its aspiring boxers—each immortalized in the anticipated moment of glory.

Otis Kwame Kye Quaicoe (b.1988, Accra, Ghana; based in Portland, OR) was born in Greater Accra Region, Ghana. He attended the Ghanatta College of Art & Design for Fine Art with a focus on painting. His work is in the collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA; Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC; Hirshhorn Museum, Washington, DC; Portland Art Museum, Portland, OR; High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA; Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami, FL and the Fogg Museum at Harvard, Cambridge, MA. Recent solo exhibitions include Otis Quaicoe: (s)kin deep, Portland Museum of Art, Portland, OR; Black Rodeo: Cowboys of the 21st Century, Almine Rech, Brussels, Belgium; Otis Kwame Kye Quaicoe: 2021 Artist in Residence, Rubell Museum, Miami, Florida, and One But Two (Haadzii), Roberts Projects, Los Angeles, CA. Select group exhibitions include Accra! The Rise of a Global Art Community, Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, OH; When We See Us, Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa, Cape Town, South Africa; Outriders: Legacy of the Black Cowboy, Harwood Museum of Art, Taos, NM; Black American Portraits, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA; Black Bodies, White Spaces: Invisibility & Hypervisibility, Green Family Art Foundation, Dallas, TX; Ontology, Ross & Kramer, New York, NY; The Show Will Go On, Nassima Landau, Tel Aviv, Israel; Life in Flowers, Luce Gallery, Turin, Italy, and Salon de Peinture, Almine Rech, New York, NY, among others.