Kwaku Ofori-Yirenkyi’s work is an impression and expression of the third-culture experience—of living between inherited traditions and the realities of the places he has come to call home. Drawing from his experience as a Ghanaian raised in America, he explores migration, memory, identity, belonging, and the ways culture transforms across borders and generations.

Through portraiture, abstraction, African textiles, Adinkra symbolism, and layered mixed-media surfaces, Absku creates figures and environments that exist between the familiar and the reconstructed. Eyes, mouths, fragmented faces, patterns, and recurring figures become a visual language for what is remembered, adapted, lost, and carried forward.

Working with acrylic paint, oil pastels, fabric, and sculptural materials such as clay foam, he builds tactile surfaces that blur the boundary between painting and relief. His practice explores identity not as something fixed, but as something continually negotiated and becoming.

50 for 50 is an artist opportunity that invites 50 community artists to showcase their work at Touchstone throughout 2026, the year of Touchstone’s 50th anniversary.

Kwaku Ofori-Yirenkyi, also known as Absku, is a Ghanaian-American visual artist based in Virginia. Working primarily in painting and mixed media, he creates layered portraits that explore migration, cultural memory, and the evolving nature of identity through the lens of the African diaspora.

Born in Ghana and raised between cultures, Absku draws inspiration from African textiles, Adinkra symbolism, and everyday narratives as both impressions and expressions of lived experience. Combining acrylic paint, oil pastels, fabric, and sculptural materials, he creates tactile works that bridge traditional and contemporary influences.

His work has been featured in solo and group exhibitions in Ghana, Ohio, Iowa, and Virginia.