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The Wooyang Art Museum is proud to present I Have Been Here Before, the first institutional solo exhibition in Asia by Ghanaian artist Amoako Boafo. Through a selection of recent and iconic paintings across four thematic spaces, the exhibition invites viewers to explore the nuances of identity, visibility, and self-representation through a body of work that is both deeply personal and powerfully resonant. For this landmark occasion, Boafo unveils a series of new works presented within a site-specific structure designed by Glenn DeRoche of inspired by Korea’s traditional hanok courtyards. 

Amoako Boafo has attracted global fame for his bold and sensual portraits. He paints bodies and faces using his fingertips instead of a brush, capturing form through direct, tactile gestures. When he went to art school in Vienna, he was struck by the extent to which Black subjects had been overlooked in global art. Determined to change the status quo, he drew inspiration from early 20th Century Viennese artists like Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele and added his own techniques to invent a fresh new style of portraiture.

By Ariana Marsh

One of the most celebrated artists in the medium of assemblage, Betye Saar was born in Los Angeles, where she studied in design. In 1967, she visited an exhibition by found objects sculptor Joseph Cornell, which radically impacted her artistic trajectory. She began lining assemblage boxes with her own prints and drawings, and filling them with found objects, creating pieces that addressed race and current events.

Portraits Revealed features group and individual portraits from the Santa Barbara Museum of Art’s extensive collection. The essence of portraiture is that it depicts or alludes to a person or people. Over centuries, the artists in this gallery have told stories, fantasized, and revealed invisible emotions and beliefs. Portraits can be meditations on life and existence, opulent displays of status, or both. This exhibition presses on what counts as a portrait by including a few still-life paintings that use objects to suggest an unseen person or situation.