Otis Kwame Kye Quaicoe is a Ghanaian-born, Portland-based painter whose work moves quietly but with immense presence. Born in Accra in 1988, he trained at the Ghanatta College of Art and Design in Ghana before relocating to Portland, Oregon in 2017 where he continued to develop his distinctive visual language. His luminous oil portraits have been exhibited internationally, from Los Angeles to Sydney, and his work is included in major museum collections and group shows across the United States and Europe.
What began as an exploration of figurative painting evolved into a deliberate visual language rooted in identity, embodiment and cultural narrative. Quaicoe has spoken about how his move from Ghana to the United States deepened his awareness of how Black bodies are seen, read and experienced in different cultural contexts. This awareness, he explains, informs how he paints presence, gaze and posture.
We are proud to introduce him as the ninth guest in our Appreciation Gallery. A visual storyteller whose richly coloured portraits hold power in calm gestures and thoughtful presence.
Identity, Presence and Visual Language
Otis’s work is built on the figure but shaped by the stories that figure carries. His portraits use colour not as decoration but as expression, allowing skin, fabric and posture to speak with intensity and nuance. In his paintings people look out at us not as objects of the gaze but as agents of their own narrative.
In conversation, he has described how his relocation from Ghana to America made him more aware of skin, movement and presence. His palette often places figures in rich, luminous colour against flatter or more subdued backgrounds, creating a tension between solidity and atmosphere that makes each sitter feel both grounded and transcendent. His images are portraits of people and of lived experience.
Black Like Me
Black Like Me was Otis’s first solo exhibition in the United States at Roberts Projects in Los Angeles in 2020. The show brought together a series of large-scale oil portraits of Black men and women, many of whom the artist met through social connections or on the street. These paintings are lush, bold and deeply present, with each figure posed confidently against vibrant fields of colour.
Quaicoe’s use of colour becomes its own language of transformation, where reds, blues and yellows are matched to the personalities and energy of his sitters. The exhibition’s title suggested a shared experience of embodiment in America, where Black identity demands visibility and celebration simultaneously. In these portraits, presence is not passive but affirmative, each person meeting the viewer with strength and nuance.
Hall of Fame
Hall of Fame explored boxing culture in Ghana, particularly the neighbourhood of Bukom in Accra, a historic cradle of Ghanaian fighters. Exhibited at Roberts Projects in Los Angeles in 2024, the series draws on Quaicoe’s deep connection to his home country and its narratives of aspiration and endurance.
In these powerful portraits, figures related to the sport of boxing appear with both physical strength and spiritual presence. Quaicoe interrogates what it means to embody resilience, to train, to stand in one’s own energy and to define identity through action. The works resonate not only as images of athletes but as visual essays on how ambition is felt, carried and reshaped by culture.
Fragments of History
Fragments of History was presented as a solo exhibition at COMA Gallery in Sydney in 2024. In this series Quaicoe looks directly at the remnants of colonial histories in his hometown of Accra. The portraits are built up with thick layers of oil paint, patterned fabric, found objects and visual references to uniforms and architecture from the colonial era.
Alongside these works were paintings inspired by his travels to Australia, where he engaged in dialogue with Indigenous artist Dennis Golding of the Kamilaroi/Gamilaraay language group about shared histories of colonial struggle. These paintings become more than portraits; they are layered conversations between personal narrative, colonial memory and cultural reclamation long carried beneath the surface of everyday life.
Reflection
Otis Kwame Kye Quaicoe’s work reminds us that presence matters on its own terms. His figures look back at us with intention, energy and complexity. They are neither silent nor performative, but richly subjective and internally anchored. His portraits honor identity not as a surface but as lived experience.
In a world fixated on fleeting trends, his paintings call for slow attention. They ask us to look without assumption, to meet each individual with openness and respect. That is a core of what we celebrate at Zongoville, where heritage, posture and presence form the quiet, powerful language of culture and style.
Discover More
Step further into Otis’s world and take your time with his portraits, where colour, gesture and gaze become invitation and testament.
Explore his work, absorb the layers of story and let each painting remind you that every face is a world unto itself.
