Priscilla Kennedy wins the second edition of the Yaa Asantewaa Art Prize, an art prize dedicated to women artists living and working in Ghana and its diaspora organized by Gallery 1957 in Ghana.
Priscilla wins a GH₵40,000 cash prize alongside an artist residency and exhibition at Gallery 1957. The second and third prizes of GH₵20,000 and GH₵15,000 will be offered to runners-up.
Priscilla Kennedy is currently pursuing her MFA in the Department of Painting and Sculpture at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and technology in Ghana. She works and lives in Kumasi, Ghana. Kennedy is sensitive to the sexual aspects of humanity and more attentive to how objects, symbols, and materials connect and speak. She finds interest in ways through which objects and materials project notions relating to a social or personal relationship with society or people. Priscilla articulates her concerns of her through specific approaches she refers to as languages, as some of her works of her embody figurative paintings that speak with the language of embroidery as part of the concept and not the center of focus. In some of her works she challenges and inserts stereotypical seductive female embroidered forms into patriarchal hegemonic cultural symbols such as the keffiyehs and kente fabrics. Kennedy believes that fabrics are more than just fancy surfaces and speak more than we could ever imagine. With regard to materials, she believes in the idea of common vocabulary in the use of familiar objects with regard to their personal and cultural meanings.
The winners were selected by a jury of international experts: Tokini Peterside-Schwebig, Founder of ART X Lagos; Joana Choumali Visual Artist; Ibrahim Mahama, Artist, Founder of the SCCA, Artistic Director of the 35th Ljubljana Biennale of Graphic Arts (2023); Azu Nwagbogu, Curator, and Founder and director of African Artists’ Foundation; Natasha Becker, Curator of African Art at the Young Museum; Katherine Finerty Curator, Art Historian, and Writer.
The award is sponsored by The Sao Foundation.
