Crystal Yayra Anthony Ghanian
Crystal Yayra Anthony (b. 1997) is a self-taught Ghanaian artist living and working in Accra, Ghana. Her practice seeks to uncover alternative forms of being using the human body’s most natural and vulnerable state: in the “nude”. Without clothing, Crystal’s subjects may present themselves as they are. Away from preconceived notions of decency or performative and acceptable expression, her practice investigates what African society could look like without the assimilation of colonial era puritanical and conservative notions.
Crystal Yayra Anthony began painting in her last year of university, gaining inspiration after reading Chimamanda Ngozi’s book, Half a Yellow Sun where one of the characters, Richie expressed generalised and uninformed views on Africans and their abilities. Seeking to confront this lack of importance placed on ancestral artmaking techniques in the international art world, her compositions endeavour to
demonstrate the value of our so-called primitive art styles.
Crystal’s practice is primarily driven by a desire to give her subjects, misfits as she lovingly calls them, the space to exist without judgement. Having completed her combined degree in Literature and Theatre Arts, Anthony currently works in Amoaka Boafo’s studio space where she communicates thestories of misfits through her own stylised finger painting. Though Anthony’s nude subjects appear vulnerable and comfortable, she does not present her subjects for unmetered consumption. They
stand or sit tall within their own spaces or homes, taking centre stage in her portraits and meeting our eyes with cool yet impenetrable expressions. The audience exists within the intimate space of her painted figures. Pointedly, we, the viewers, are not entitled to her subjects' stories but rather invited to view them. Anthony’s works confront her audience with their assumptions asking us to feel first and judge later, compelling us to recall moments in which we have lived or felt similarly.
