Artist Statement

Throughout my life, I’ve been exploring the question, ‘What does it mean to be an African?’ Affirming the core of African power within myself and others permeates everything I do and represent. My objects and installations at once draw upon my history and simultaneously comment on the present. I have embraced mixed media processes to express and explore ideas regarding the richness of African history and pressing contemporary concerns addressing where we come from, where we are, and where we are going.

I use mixed media installation to create a space that allows for open dialogue between the audience and the space utilizing some elements of Ghanaian culture and the human hand as a tool to explore the idea of what it means to be an African. As a concerned artist, I see, feel, analyze, and make work to examine these realities. I am influenced as an artist by what I have been through since childhood, recollecting the memories and experiences throughout my life. At the same time, I elaborate on why they are significant to me specifically. Therefore, I make installations that link the past, present, and future for Ghanaians.

I want my work to draw audiences to experience the richness of some aspects of African culture and their relevance to our contemporary world. I desire to make sculptural installations that communicate ideas to make viewers recognize that what people think they know is not always the whole truth.

Bio

Vincent Frimpong is a contemporary ceramic artist from Accra, Ghana. He holds an M.F.A. in Ceramics Art from the University of Arkansas and a B.A. in Industrial Arts (Ceramics Option) from Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Ghana. His work has been exhibited in numerous group and solo exhibitions, including A labor of love at the Poole Gallery, University of Montevallo (Birmingham, AL), Beyond the Single at the Shircliff Gallery of Art (Vincennes, IN), and The Frimpong Case Continued at the Hall Gallery, Millsaps College (Jackson, MS).

Frimpong’s research and creative practice have been supported by several fellowships and awards, including the 2025 NCECA Emerging Artist Fellowship, Amaco Fellowship at Archie Bray Foundation, and the 2025 Rudy Autio Endowed Fund for Creatives. He has also received the Windgate Accelerator Grant (University of Arkansas), the Artists 360 Practicing Artist Grant (Walton Arts Foundation), the CXF MARs Award (The Medium / CACHE), the Zenobia Award (Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts), the Windgate University Fellowship (Arrowmont), the Maxwell-Hanrahan Fellowship (Haystack), the John Glick Scholarship (Penland), and awards from CIRCA and the Midsouth Sculpture Alliance. He currently serves as Assistant Professor of Art at Augustana College, Rock Island, Illinois.