At the cultural center in Kumasi, Ghana, Joel Kwadwo-Acheamgpong is perched in his cramped studio hard at work. His face is moist with perspiration and his small, dark pupils dance back and forth like pinballs in the whites of his eyes. On the canvas in front of him a burning red sky stretches beneath a canary-yellow sun. In the right corner of the landscape sit two circular outlines and Joel squints and examines their progress. Content to move onward, he lithely transforms the shapes into palm-thatched huts. Then, he signs the painting with a flourish and appraises his work.
But suddenly something catches his eye, causing him to bob his head and snatch his paintbrush back from the water can with his mouth. Craning his neck slightly, he dips his brush into the palette and hoists it toward the canvass. He makes a few final touches, tracing the path of the brush with his neck, before softly muttering “All done.” It is a startling process to witness, especially when you consider that Joel completes hundreds of paintings every year and doesn’t use his hands for a single one.
Stricken with polio during infancy, Joel lost the use of his arms and legs as a young boy. However, his illness did little to quell his appetite for art. He says that he was always spellbound by pictures and used to help his peers with their artwork in primary school, despite not being able to attend himself.
In those days, Joel used to try to draw with his hands, but at the age of 24 he began to experiment with painting with his mouth. Then, one day he met Kumasi painter Mark G. Nyante at a Bible class. Nyante was amazed by Joel’s painting skills and agreed to mentor and manage him. Three years ago, Joel moved into Nyante’s studio, where he now toils at the canvas six days a week.
Nyante says that Joel’s painting has been a work in progress and has improved rapidly over the last few years. His favorite themes are African women and their children. In many of them, the mother is carrying her child on her back, an image that Joel says is a tribute to his mother and the effort she put forth raising him. “When I became a cripple my mother worried a lot about me. Mothers struggle a lot taking care of their children,” he says.
Joel’s paintings are not just impressive for his condition, but on par with much of the art in the cultural center. However, he still has problems making ends meet. Most weeks he only sells a few paintings, bringing in around $25-30. He lives four miles away from the cultural center with his brothers and due to the lack of accessible public transportation he must spend money on a cab ride to work every day. His wheelchair is also in shabby condition and he must be assisted by friends in order to bathe and use the toilet.
Regardless, he is an overwhelmingly positive person, and in the face of such challenging obstacles he has continued to rely on his faith “Everything you want to do, God will help you do. God will help you overcome,” he says, when asked about his preternatural painting talent. Joel has recently been holding a number of exhibitions to show off his paintings and hopes to someday have a studio for himself. Nyante says his first purchase, should he ever accrue any significant income, would likely be a motorized wheelchair.
As the late afternoon sun begins to melt outside of his studio, Joel considers whether or not to start another painting. A young couple wanders into the studio, which is marked by huge signs reading “COME SEE THE DISABLED PAINTER WHO PAINTS WITH HIS MOUTH.” The woman marvels at the colorful canvasses hung from the ceiling and scattered across the floor. “Do you think he really paints these,” she asks her companion within Joel’s earshot.
The man pleads Joel to paint something, but Joel shakes his head and says they’ll have to buy a painting if they want an exhibition. They don’t, but later, after a bit of a rest, Joel whips up another landscape. This time it’s an abstraction of three colorful female figures standing tall, black and thin amidst a bright blue background. When he’s finished he lets the brush hang momentarily from his lips like a cigarette before dropping it for the final time into the water bin. Done with the day’s work, he waits patiently for a friend to wheel him outside.
You can contact Joel via his manager:
Mark G. Nyante
yawnyante@yahoo.com
(233)-0208790097
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