Born 1960. Self-taught. Seminal painter of the Golden Age. Loves gore. Possibly best painter of the pure billowing bundles of fire within the tradition of movie poster painting in Ghana. Can make a veritable flower garden of swirling fire blossoms if he feels the feeling. Look out hydrangeas! Relishes the opportunity to attack and fill a canvas with competing images. Tuck and roll clothing, starbursts on shining sword and knife blades are among his favorite accessories. Figures often appear not to be subject to conventional gravity, as we understand it. Creates see-through skin to expose raw muscularity, complete with veins and sinew. An excellent sign writer/font inventor—positively fonterrific, especially with faux Asian characters. His earlier works are much more detailed than his later ones. Has a lively sense of humor. Began painting movie posters in the late 1980s, stopping in 1998 when the market collapsed. Painted quickie, less intricate posters post millennium.

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS:

1993: Hand-Painted Movie Posters from Ghana, Ernie Wolfe Gallery, Los Angeles

1996: Hand-Painted Movie Posters from Ghana, Ernie Wolfe Gallery, Bergamot Station, Santa Monica

1999: Hand-Painted Movie Posters from Ghana, Ernie Wolfe Gallery, Los Angeles

2001: Death-Stalking Sleep-Walking Barbarian Ninja Terminators: Hand-Painted Movie Posters from Ghana, Fowler Museum of Cultural History, UCLA, Los Angeles, (voted best exhibition of 2001 by LA Weekly)

2001 – 2002: Extreme Canvas: Hand-Painted Movie Posters from Ghana, Ernie Wolfe Gallery, Los Angeles

2001: Cavin Morris Gallery, New York, NY September 2001

2003: Seven from Ghana, Sundance Film Festival, Park City, UT January 2003

2003: Outrageous Supercharge: Hand-Painted Movie Posters from Ghana, MASS MoCA, North Adams, MA

2004: Africa Screams, Iwalewa-Haus Afrikazentrum der Universitat Bayreuth, 2004

Traveled to Vienna November 2004 – February 2005

2006: Extreme Canvas, Center for African American Culture, Pittsburgh, PA 

2006: Serpents, Mermaids and Action Heroes, Parkland College Art Gallery, Champaign, IL

2008: “Extreme Canvas: Hand Painted Movie Posters from Ghana”, ArcLight Cinemas Hollywood, CA

2009: “Out of Africa: Obama and McCain Praise Portraits and Visual Narratives”, Ernie Wolfe Gallery, Los Angeles; Reviewed in the Los Angeles Times on May 21, 1999, by art critic David Pagel

2009: “No This Is It: Michael Jackson, 25 Years of Praise Portraits”, Ernie Wolfe Gallery, Los Angeles

2012: “Michael Jackson in the After-Life: Praise Portraits and Commentary Paintings from Ghana”, Ernie Wolfe Gallery, Los Angeles 

2013: Wow Women, Ernie Wolfe Gallery, Los Angeles

2013: The Horror The Horror!, Ernie Wolfe Gallery, curated by Brandon Boyd

2013: “Viva Mandela!”, Ernie Wolfe Gallery, Los Angeles

2014: Knock Off – Hand-Painted Movie Posters from Ghana, Guggenheim Gallery, Chapman University, Orange, CA

2014: “Ghana Pop”, Ernie Wolfe Gallery, Los Angeles

2014: Continental Convergence: Hand-Painted Martial Arts Posters from Ghana, Mandarin Plaza, Chinatown, Los Angeles

2016: Kung Fu in Africa: Hand-Painted Movie Posters from Ghana (1985-1999), Hanart TZ, Hong Kong

2017 - 2018: Ghana Paints Hollywood: Hand Painted Movie Posters from Ghana, New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain, CT curated by Ernie Wolfe III

2017 – 2018 Lingnan Hung Kuen Across the Century: Kung Fu Narratives in Cinema and Community, Hong Kong Visual Arts Centre, Hong Kong; City University of Hong Kong; Art Lab, Lausanne, Switzerland 

2019 – 2020, Baptized by Beefcake: The Golden Age of Hand Painted Movie Posters from Ghana, Poster House, New York, NY co-curated by Ernie Wolfe III and Angelina Lippert

PUBLICATIONS:

2000: Extreme Canvas: Hand-Painted Movie Posters from Ghana, Ernie Wolfe III, Dilettante Press, 2000

2000: Juxtapoz Art & Culture Magazine, Ernie Wolfe III, Nov/Dec 2000, pages 44-51

2003  New York Times Magazine, “Why We Love Fashion? It’s Universal; Planet Ghana”, Ernie Wolfe III, February 23, 2003 

2012: Extreme Canvas 2: The Golden Age of Hand-Painted Movie Posters from Ghana, Ernie Wolfe III, Kesho/Malaika Press, 2012