Art Critic on Agenda Ahead II – by Glomess (Mr & Mrs Frank Glover)

Frank in name, frank in nature. The Glover family are well known artists in Ghana, including the legend, Ablade Glover; Frank is his nephew. 

This is one of my very first crtiques of Ghanaian art... . 

Acrylic on Canvas  created in 2005.

It is a picture with a blue background, reminding you of the sea and sky.

With a few brushstrokes beneath, the painter lets you know they are on the sea and it is nine men on an agenda ahead. Again with a brushstroke Glomess creates a body of one of the men with a variation of colours including blue, dark blue, greens, yellow, orange and hints of red. The figures are individually seen.

    

Their posture is one of seriousness, as if they are in an army marching. It lets the viewer know their agenda is a serious one or one on which they intend to get results. The figures take all the foreground of the painting making the viewer only concentrate on them. Their posture also places them like the sail of the boat that they are in, emphasising on the direction they have chosen and the determination to complete it. There is no flowing hair and there is something about the structure of their heads that gives you the impression they are men.

   

Two men if not more look to be wearing hats. The third from the left looks like he is wearing a workers hat from a building site (red in colour). And a few of the men look like they are in uniforms. Are these men workers in a boat or ready for a revolution? It reminds one of the communist sculptures (to be found formally in Russia and in China), in strength and seriousness but this time round they are all black men. This is an example that we are all human when it comes to the seriousness of an agenda ahead.

  

The boat they are in looks like an ordinary wooden boat; but Glomess uses colours to give the boat more boldness, definition and strength to match the confidence of the men.

  

Although the “Agenda Ahead II” painting could be criticised for being too easy to paint or for not having enough detail or even too impressionist to be good, it is a good painting in the sense that it serves its purpose and forfills its title and idea. And who could say motivation is a bad thing?

Sometimes in life an agenda becomes that important to us as individuals and you become very serious until completion or try to be.