Kwadwo Amfo wins Ron Mandos Photo Talent Award 2022

10 september 2022

Kwadwo Amfo, who graduated in the Bachelor Photography last academic year, is the winner of the Ron Mandos Photo Talent Award in the fifteenth edition of Best of Graduates. This is the annual exhibition that brings together the work of the most promising young artists from the Netherlands.

"Kwadwo Amfo creates photographs, films, and sculptures of great craftmanship. His works have a tremendous appeal, which upon getting closer don’t let go. They are layered and refreshing. Each time you learn something new. A bronze sculpture of the artist appears to be a 3D print based on four different faces. His portraits from the series Silhouette insist on their ambiguity; on being a beautiful representation, while at the same time presenting the harsh realities of social inequality,"

the jury report says.

About the graduation project of Kwadwo Amfo

(S)ILHOUTTE

Criminalisation is the inability to separate a person from criminality based on their group identity. In this case, black male criminalisation is the inability to separate black males from criminals. Through photography, augmented reality, film, and 3D printed sculpture, the audience is invited to look deeper into our interpersonal experiences and the mental processes that inform them. Depicting black characters reflects the desire, born of my own experiences, to bring to the fore the inadequate and troubling representations of black people in today’s media and throughout history.

SILHOUETTE investigates and displays representations of misrepresentation of black men that has permeated our public consciousness. Decontextualising affirmations, illustrating what it is like to inhabit white-dominant spaces — nuanced statements about simply being.

(S)ILHOUETTE - Kwadwo Amfo
(S)ILHOUETTE - Kwadwo Amfo

About Best of Graduates 2022

The Best of Graduates 2022, the annual exhibition bringing together the work of the most promising young artists from the Netherlands featured the work of KABK graduates Marcos Kueh, Johnny Mae Hauser, Katarina Head, Maarten Krol, Marcos Kueh, Ben Maier, Nurul Ain Binti Nor Halim, Menno Pasveer.