GIDEON APPAH: BENEATH NIGHT AND DAY
PACE is pleased to present Gideon Appah's first solo exhibition with the gallery in New York, highlighting the works on canvas he created during the past year in his studio in Ghana, West Africa.
January 16 - February 28, 2026
Although his paintings are inspired by real places and people, they can appear more mythological than representational, employing elements of Fauvism and Surrealism that defy any clear narrative reading. Drawing inspiration from scenes of everyday life in Ghana, as well as personal memories, dreams, and family histories, Appah creates compositions that dissolve the divisions between the tangible and the imagined, while addressing questions of identity, freedom, and form. Dreamlike and reflective, his works elevate the simple act of gathering into the realm of collective memory, where it takes on new and unexpected meaning.
Appah’s works from the Swimmers and Surfers series are the focus of his upcoming presentation with Pace. Inspired by the local surfers, fishermen, and swimmers of Busua Beach and Kokrobite, Ghana, where Appah's studio is located, this series encompasses a range of compositions, with landscapes populated by multiple figures in various states of action: carrying surfboards, resting, and swimming. Her New York exhibition will also feature vertical portraits of solitary figures, marking a new direction for the series.
The passage of time in the Swimmers and Surfers canvases, as they move from day to night, from dusk to dawn, enhances their dreamlike atmosphere. In these works, Appah explores color more broadly to capture different times of day and lighting conditions, applying a range of blues before layering a wider palette with touches of purple, yellow, orange, and hints of white. The overall effect is complex and textured, with brighter tones softened by the underlying blues to create a subdued atmosphere.
Appah first visited Busua Beach in 2022 and has returned several times since. In early 2025, he created the short film Beyond the Shadows, which will also be featured in the Pace exhibition. Directed by Chris Baiden with a voiceover poem written and performed by Poetra Asantewa, the short explores the lifestyle of the area’s surfers and swimmers, capturing images of men and women in the ocean or gazing from the shore. Many of the subjects in Appah’s paintings are based on the real people in this film and on reference photographs, with recognizable faces often recurring in the works.