Remembering a Great Man: A Conversation with Kwame Akoto of Almighty God Art Works

On a Sunday afternoon in April 2021, I met virtually with painter Kwame Akoto, proprietor of the Almighty God Art Works studio located off the Suame Roundabout in Kumasi. The last time we had met in person was 2018, when I stopped by his studio to see his latest production and to bring Doran's greetings. Akoto had learned of Doran's passing in September 2020 from LA gallerist Ernie Wolfe, a mutual friend, who had called him immediately to share the news. During our recent conversation, Akoto was eager to share his feelings and memories of his long relationship with Doran Ross. This piece summarizes our exchange, where Akoto alternated recollections, hymns, and prayers as his tribute to “a great man.”Doran first met the prolific artist Kwame Akoto in 1995 on one of his frequent visits to Kumasi, when he would traverse the city taking stock of the community of sign painters working at a given time. For many years, Akoto, commonly referred to by his friends as “Almighty,” produced a large range of commercial paintings such as shop signs, banners, and other forms of advertising, as well as self-driven creative works mostly purchased by international customers. Over the previous decade, Almighty God Art Works’ commercial production or “sign writing” had progressively been supplanted by digital printing in line with the evolution of the local advertising industry. Digital placards are cheaper and more versatile than handpainted signs, and most businesses today favor photographic compositions that allow for advertising a broader range of products. For Akoto this change in business patterns has meant more time to dedicate to “creativity work.” This is where Akoto experiments with different visual languages and messaging to create paintings that are at once deeply serious and whimsical, poetic and very matter-of-fact. Christian themes, portraits of local and international figures, moral recommendations, and self-portraits are just some of the recurrent elements of Akoto's iconography— often quite literally expressions of his worldviews and beliefs and plays on the tension between realism and paradox (Ross 2014a: 9). Despite the variety of subjects depicted, Almighty's very direct social or moral messages are made explicit through the inclusion of writing in the composition or on the frame. In his two extensive articles on Almighty God Art Works published in this journal in 2014, Doran analyzed the artist's multilayered production and the importance of the “verbal-visual nexus” in the understanding of his work (Cole and Ross 1977: 9–12). Akoto's images and text convey reflections grounded in his deeply held Evangelical faith and a desire to encourage fellow humans to stay away from evils and sins such as womanizing, smoking, speeding, and other disruptive or careless behaviors.When I last saw Almighty in 2018, among the “creativity work” that filled his studio was a somewhat ghostly portrait of Doran Ross. In this work Doran is portrayed alongside a self-portrait of the artist, painted in profile, being hit in the face by a wooden stick symbolizing Satan's ever-present temptation (Fig. 1). It is almost as if the painting is “explaining itself” through the words on the frame (Ross 1994a: 17): “Oh! Mr. Doran, Satan uses rod and sticks to hit me at all times. But God saves me from all troubles Halleluyah [sic]. Kwame Akoto exclaims.” In this composition, Doran plays the role of the interlocutor, listening to Akoto's musings on his struggles to persist on the path of righteousness.Though this was not necessarily one of Doran's favorite paintings, it is a fitting and meaningful tribute to their long-time friendship. As Almighty himself recalled in our conversation on April 4, 2021:Doran had been an important presence in Almighty's creative process since their first encounter in 1995. While not the only influential figure in his career (Almighty readily acknowledges Thierry Secretan's critical encouragement to pursue “creativity work” in 1994), Doran's interest in Akoto's life as scholar, collector, and friend for over twenty-five years unquestionably positioned him as an incontestable authority on Almighty's work. Doran would visit the studio every time he went to Ghana. They would talk for a long time, discussing art and life. Doran knew the family, saw the children grow, and he even accompanied Almighty as he went to the city hospital and other public places to preach and pray. The time spent together created a special bond of mutual respect and built a level of comfort and familiarity that enabled Doran to spend many hours watching the artist at work, something that would not necessarily be granted to just anyone (Fig. 2). For over two decades, Doran collected paintings and stories from the studio, and the two African Arts articles about him were a source of great pride to the artist (Ross 2014a, b). Other insights about Almighty were intended as the foundation of an exhibition he had proposed and a book he had hoped to write in the last years of his life (the exhibition is planned to open at the Fowler Museum at UCLA in early 2022).At the time of his passing, Doran's apartment was extensively appointed with a wide range of Almighty God Art Works’ pieces, including a number of Almighty's signature anti-smoking paintings (Fig. 3; see Ross 2014b). This collection, alongside the many paintings that he had purchased for or donated to the Fowler Museum throughout the years, will be the core of the planned retrospective. Many of these works have been bequeathed to the Fowler, the National Museum of African Art, and the Royal Ontario Museum or gifted to the Harn Museum.Whether he was in Ghana or in California, Doran was in regular communication with Akoto. They spoke on the phone often, and whenever Almighty produced a painting “that touched his heart” he would send the image to LA, by letter in the past, and more recently by email, aided by his technologically savvy daughters. Almighty is keenly aware of Doran's role in increasing his visibility and international reputation.For Almighty, knowing that Doran was surrounded by his paintings was reassuring, especially his acknowledgment of new ideas for “creativity work” based on both divine and wordly inspiration as well as knowing that Doran liked to collect the full range of his production.In our conversation last April, Akoto reiterated several times the sense of loss that Doran's passing had generated. As a man of faith, he had prayed for Doran's health throughout his illness and he was deeply saddened by his death:

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