f all the world is a stage, then every presence is an actor, every gesture part of a mise en scène, every colour builds a scene.
Ishmael Armarh (b. 1986, Accra, Ghana) is a contemporary painter whose work stages the Black figure as absolute protagonist within a constructed, theatrical pictorial space. Trained at the Ghanatta College of Art and Design in Accra, he has developed a distinctive language of saturated colour, dense composition and a fragmented, tessellated painted surface that recalls, in purely formal terms, the pointillist tradition of Georges Seurat, while drawing on the patterned richness of Ghanaian textiles and contemporary fashion. Armarh was the 2022 Visiting Fellow and 2023 Junior Fellow at the Noldor Residency, Accra. He has exhibited in London, Amsterdam and Rome, and lives and works in Accra.