“Of the late Muslim Mohammed, his close friend Africatta quotes Muslim as saying ‘I love painting cinema posters better than any other painting because that’s where I can best express my skills on the canvas, especially when it comes in terms of treating the colors to bring out a muscle man.’ Africatta adds, ‘Muslim was a skillful painter indeed, because he could paint realistically to bring out figures and objects in the scenes as if they were touchable.’”

— Muslim in Extreme Canvas 2 (2012) by Ernie Wolfe III, pg. 65

Born 1967. Died 1995. Apprentice of Africatta (in Kumasi), but painted most of his posters while on the Coast outside Accra. The Ghanaian movie poster painters’ favorite painter. Although he studied under the air brush style of the “master stroke of Africatta,” he devoted his time to a hyper-realistic representational style much more akin to the school of Joe Mensah. He is even known to use Joe’s “rainbow coalition” of hair color highlights and is another espouser of the blue hue. He can create an overabundance of musculature and rippleosity of flesh right in there with Leonardo, Nyankumah, Joe Mensah, and Jasper. Comfortable with skin tonal variation all the way from dark to very light. Micro detail, fire in every form, no problem. Recognized both in Kumasi and on the Coast as the genius movie poster painter whose career ended far too soon and tragically in 1995 at 28 of sickle cell anemia. An art hero in Ghana and gone before the outside world knew he was even there.

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: “Extreme Canvas”, Cavin Morris Gallery, New York, NY September 2001

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

2007: “Black Like We”, Feldman-Horn Gallery, Harvard-Westlake School, North Hollywood, CA

2013: Wow Women, Ernie Wolfe Gallery, Los Angeles

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

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

2019: Macro/Micro: Bronze/Canvas: Gwynn Murrill & Bob Graham, Africatta & Joe Mensah, Ernie Wolfe Gallery, Los Angeles

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

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