When we speak, Gideon Appah has just landed in New York for his first visit to the United States. The next day, the Ghanaian artist would make his way to the East End to begin a six-week-long fellowship at the Watermill Center, the renowned arts incubator founded by avant-garde polymath Robert Wilson just over three decades ago.
Appah packed light: He limited his artistic equipment to some extra brushes and a laptop. A suite of empty canvases awaited him out East. The 37-year-old Accra native didn’t quite know what to expect from the Hamptons, but he was going in with a supple attitude. “I’m very, very open to what happens at Watermill,” he tells me over Zoom. “I’m ready to explore.”
Since his arrival on the international scene at the tail end of the last decade, Appah has cemented his place as an essential alchemist of fauvist traditions, African popular culture, and relaxed portraiture. In his sweeping paintings, figures slalom through modes of repose—from languorous cigarettes to family gatherings to beachside capers. These polychrome dreamscapes caught the eye of Pace, which added him to its roster in 2022 and is helping to support his fellowship at Watermill, intended to be the first in a series of such collaborations.
When I ask him if joining a mega-gallery has brought unwanted pressure on his practice, Appah shakes his head. “[Early on,] I spoke to [Pace CEO] Marc Glimcher, and he told me, ‘You don’t have to feel pressured into making work. Just relax and be creative,’” he remembers. “I just need to make sure that I make good work. That’s the bottom line: good work."
That result can’t be rushed, and Appah speaks candidly about getting stuck (although he’s been feeling less so these days). In his eyes, time away from a painting can be as fruitful as forcing it into existence, and every so often a subtle change in posture will do the trick. “Sometimes I just need to sit in a chair in front of the canvas for a while—relax with the work, sit with it, take [my] time,” he explains.
Like with any residency, however, Appah’s time in Water Mill would be limited: He had six weeks to create the body of work that will debut at the annual benefit on July 27 and populate the center’s main gallery through Oct. 12. Over Zoom, he tells me he’s matching that temporal challenge with a proportional one: He planned to treat his smaller canvases like his monumental ones during the residency, by packing the same amount of visual information into them.
He had this spark in London after seeing a series of works by the late still-life master Giorgio Morandi. “The work could fit into your suitcase, but its appearance is beautiful. So I said, ‘Let me try,’” Appah reasons. “What will that bring me? What kind of feeling will I get from them?” East Enders will be able to witness the answers to those questions this summer, perhaps even taking one home in their luggage at the season’s end.
