‘Bipolar, colour and me’ - an artist’s spreadsheet of emotion

One time erstwhile struggling to get to grips with a spreadsheet to cipher his yearly fund for creation supplies, an thought popped into the caput of Ghanaian ocular creator Joseph Awuah-Darko.

He could usage the database to way his bipolar disorder, a intelligence unwellness that causes immense swings successful a person's moods, vigor and attraction levels.

“I'm a ocular learner and I thought: 'Why don't I usage colour arsenic a language?'” Awuah-Darko told the BBC.

"Colour allows maine to explicit things that I can't truly seizure successful words.”

The 28-year-old started allocating to each hr a colour that represented however helium was feeling astatine that constituent successful clip - with reddish being the astir depressive state, and pastel bluish the astir positive.

“It became thing that became addictive - and cathartic. And an absorbing mode of monitoring my life.”

Out of those meticulous integer records, the creator has besides created a bid of abstract lipid paintings - portraits of his days.

His archetypal UK solo exhibition, How’s Your Day Going?, “makes exterior” his struggles with bipolar disorder, with which helium was diagnosed astatine the property of 16 erstwhile helium had a breakdown astatine school.

Some days are amended than others, arsenic the blocks of colour successful his worksheets show.

He uses lipid sticks to make vertical linear stripes connected the canvas - successful blacks, browns, reds, oranges, yellows, blues and greens.

Some paintings are astir arsenic neat and precise arsenic the coloured spreadsheet cells - others are little ordered.

The creator does not hold for 1 overgarment to adust earlier helium applies the adjacent colour - and arsenic the bedewed paints tally into each other, caller colours are created.

This mixing, says Awuah-Darko, reflects the nuances and complexities of his ain emotions.

"It's beauteous to spot how, adjacent though I person fixed these strict schematic colour assignments to my moods, emotions aren't sanitised,” helium says.

“They are messy, and they travel into each other,“ helium says.

Awuah-Darko was calved successful London to Ghanaian parents, but helium grew up successful Ghana, has travelled a batch and present lives successful the Belgian capital, Brussels.

The colours helium uses to seizure his emotions beryllium connected wherever helium is successful the satellite - and partially reflects “the quality of what I consciousness astir the situation I'm in”.

The deep, lukewarm blue-green of teal is simply a colour that helium astir associates with Brussels.

Teal covers a full scope of emotions and energies that helium feels - determination successful the mediate betwixt the deep, disruptive slump of reddish and the positivity of lighter blues.

He often paints portion successful “a authorities of teal”.

“I'm heavy successful thought and mislaid successful the void of my ain imaginations,” helium says.

“I’m not precisely bursting with joy,” helium laughs,” but I americium engaging my caput and my hands successful a mode that I consciousness is productive.”

Yellow is what Awuah-Darko describes arsenic “a nuanced authorities of anxiety”. It could beryllium a infinitesimal of disappointment oregon rejection.

"It's not an implicit negative,” helium says, “but it is thing that could interruption you down - if you chose to let it to.”

The archetypal coating Awuah-Darko created successful the How’s Your Day Going? bid is entitled June 15 PM.

The day is the time recorded successful the spreadsheet - and “PM” reflects that helium finished the coating astatine night.

The representation holds peculiar “emotional gravitas” for the creator due to the fact that helium says it is erstwhile helium accepted that his beingness was going to beryllium based for the foreseeable aboriginal successful Brussels - not Accra, Ghana’s capital.

Awuah-Darko near Ghana due to the fact that helium wanted to unrecorded openly arsenic a cheery antheral - and helium felt helium could not bash that due to the fact that of restrictive authorities passed by Ghana’s parliament successful February 2024.

The measure - which is yet to beryllium signed into instrumentality by the president - imposes heavy sentences connected gay, lesbian and bisexual people, anyone who identifies arsenic transgender, arsenic good arsenic those seen arsenic allies.

“I created June 15th astatine a clip erstwhile I was truly reconciling with what it meant to beryllium an immigrant. That was daunting, heavy, beauteous and exciting.”

Awuah-Darko was inspired to alteration the “spreadsheet diaries” into paintings by a two-month creator residency helium attended earlier this twelvemonth astatine the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation successful the US.

The precocious German-born American creator Josef Albers enactment colour astatine the centre of his enactment and has inspired generations of artists.

"At the residency, I learned astir the powerfulness of colour arsenic language, arsenic vocabulary, and it truly enhanced my quality to seizure that successful my abstract painting.”

Awuah-Darko besides pays homage successful his creation to the bold and colourful enactment of Atta Kwami - 1 of Ghana’s astir respected artists who came from Kumasi but spent galore years successful the UK wherever helium died successful 2021.

“There's specified an honesty astir his coating and specified a reverence for the colours helium uses, which are truthful linked to his upbringing successful Ghana and to however helium viewed the satellite done lines and spaces.”

Another power is Anni Albers, 1 of the world’s starring textile designers and printmakers, and woman of Josef Albers, who blurred the lines betwixt the past trade of hand-weaving and modern art.

Awuah-Darko drew connected Albers' enactment for his astir caller paintings - and besides his ain heritage.

He comes from an influential household of financiers and chiefs successful the south-central Ashanti portion of Ghana.

The ancestral location is precise adjacent to Bonwire, the birthplace of the world-famous kente fabric, and the creator grew up wearing the accepted multi-coloured cloth.

He besides learned however to weave it utilizing a manus loom, stripe by stripe, colour by colour - a process that helium finds “cathartic and meditative”.

His paintings are reminiscent of kente cloth, and the process has, helium says, been “almost similar weaving with paint”.

"It’s ace absorbing to spot however my practice has manifested itself successful my enactment – beyond the mode successful which it evidently addresses my conflict with depression.”

The accumulation How’s Your Day Going? by Joseph Awuah-Darko is connected astatine Ed Cross Fine Art successful London until 19 October 2024.

You tin find retired much astir bipolar upset here