Pamela Clarkson & Atta Kwami:

Kena Hetuna, Open & Closed

“Early in the morning, before it got too hot, I went drawing in the local covered market. At that hour, the stalls were silent. Later, the women would come, having finished work in the house, to set out their foodstuffs. In the absence of the usual colourful crowd, all was dusty-grey.”

Pamela Clarkson and Atta Kwami are painters and printmakers who spent their time between their homes and studios in Loughborough, UK and Kumasi, Ghana. Both artists produce artworks which refer to architecture, fabrics, implements, people and place, combining bright and striking lines, shapes, patterns and colours. ‘Kena Hetuna, Open and Closed’ refers to the rhythms of the marketplace, a social network made up of family businesses, ebullient characters, sales talk, signage and digital adverts, bend down boutiques and makeshift stalls open to the elements. For Pamela and Atta the marketplace symbolises the international exchange and acceptance they have experienced when living between Loughborough and Kumasi. Pamela and Atta partner together for the exhibition, building a temporary kiosk structure in the gallery of Modern Painters, New Decorators and filling the space with paintings, prints and sculptures recently made in Ghana alongside previously unshown work.