Philip Kwame Apagya

Philip Kwame Apagya is a Ghanaian artist whose color photographs reflect a contemporary twist on traditional West African portraiture. In Apagya's photos, subjects interact with his brightly painted 2-D backdrops, interiors and exteriors that catalogue the trappings and accoutrement of an affluent international culture. Subjects inhabit faux living rooms showing library shelves or consoles stuffed with expensive electronics, or chat on cell phones standing before home computers, or prepare to board that international flight to happiness. While Apagya's photographs reflect a young and prosperous generation of consumers, one can imagine that for some, the photographs also present a "reality" beyond their means.

Philip Kwame Apagya's works have been exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago, the Sheldon Art Galleries in Nebraska, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, to name a few. His photographs are in many collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY and the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY.