Dorothy Akpene Amenuke

Faculty Biography

Dorothy Akpene Amenuke (PhD) is an artist who lives and works in Kumasi Ghana. She is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Painting and Sculpture, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi. Her research interests focus on themes that reference to a large extent different ways of ‘space’ consumption with mix media and installations. She has served as a resource person for art clubs in schools and was also involved with the SaNsA International Workshop which is part of the Triangle Arts Workshops. She has been on several international programs.  Amenuke is the coordinator of the itinerant OFKOB Artists’ Residency in Ghana and has also participated in several international art workshops and residencies directing some of them. She was on the Apexart Residency program in New York and was a guest at the Perpich Center for Arts Education in Minneapolis, USA. Dorothy Amenuke was  in Kenya (courtesy Kuona Trust) and Egypt (Dwayer’s) for two international Women Artists’ Workshops.She was the recipient of the 2012 Howard Kestenbaum/Vijay Paramsothy International Fellowship in the Haystack Mountain School of crafts, USA and has several shows (both solo and group to her credit). Her work, “How Far How Near”, is in the collection of Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam (SMA). Amenuke’s art involves the manipulation of a variety of fabrics and fibres into objects and spatial installations that evoke feelings of containment and protections or even subtle repulsion. Initially she adapted her fabrics to the conventional sculptural language, producing pieces through modeling, casting or assemblage. In recent times however, her work has evolved in the direction of soft sculpture, fiber art and installations. She manipulates different fabrics and fibers as metaphors to material processes for her means. Employing techniques such as stitching, tying, gluing, quilting and exploring themes that reference to a large extent, women and daily life, she creates evocative objects, some of which come into their element when installed in the natural environment.To Dorothy, the natural space is a very important factor when she creates a piece. Her work exemplifies the freshness of a new voice and casts an alternative glance at the practice of sculpture in the contemporary Ghanaian Art context. Devotion becomes a recurring metaphor in her use of materials, laborious processes and communal strategies in the production of her work. Studio- Dot Art Studio, KumasiWebsite- www.dorothyamenuke.com