Dialectics of Memory

Emmanuel Manu Opoku’s practice experiments with new ways to visually express the psychological and geographical impact of cultural identity. In his practice, he repurposes a collection of objects to demonstrate a unique logic born out of his understanding of value, history, space, and materiality. While he was in Ghana, he experienced a different system of commodity where every material has long term value, either broken or new. Living in the US, his practice investigates the aesthetic value in objects that are discarded in the course of time. Emmanuel transforms a variety of materials he collects from thrift stores to navigate how time and space change cultural values and histories.

Opoku’s art practice has taken the form of both two-dimensional and three-dimensional, employing the role of assemblage, informed by western historical art forms, along with his nostalgic experience. He is interested in how objects allow him to investigate cultures and the significance of human histories. The language of his art in terms of his multicultural experience expresses ambiguity in form, and the incorporation of familiar materials in his practice generates aesthetic and experiential relationship between the audience and the materials that have been transformed. Emmanuel experiments with a variety of mediums to suggest versatility as the symbol of freedom since he believes that art is a platform where all fantasies are lived.

Emmanuel Manu Opoku, a painter and sculptor, currently serves as an adjunct lecturer in UF’s School of Art and Art History and as resident artist and curator of the school’s 4most Gallery. He is a graduate of Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Kumasi Ghana and received his MFA degree from the University of Florida in Gainesville. Emmanuel has had 4 solo exhibitions in Gainesville, Deland (FL), and Wilmington (NC) and recently his work has been included in groups shows in Delaware, Philadelphia, and South Carolina. He has an upcoming solo exhibition in Santa Fe (NM).

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