Blue Heaven

The vibrant and distinct works of Daniel Tetteh Nartey center on the experimental exploration of emotions, and personal growth through stratagem of the reinterpretation of the figure, color, line, and texture. His new exhibition of works highlights his experimental approaches to his evolution as a color theorist and genre-bending surrealist. Among the most striking elements of Tetteh Nartey’s work are the seemingly disembodied heads, hands, legs, and feet in his compositions. These newer works offer us figures in various stages of activity; from drinks with friends in Blue Kiosk, to cutting a birthday cake in Celebrant, and a moment of intimate repose in Cuddle II. We rarely see a fully realized whole representational body. By definition, the body parts are literally disembodied, however, the intention is quite the opposite. The artist’s choice to render his figures in a manner that borders on the formally incorporeal is in fact rooted in offering both the subject and the viewers the space to inhabit and exercise their fullest bodily, emotional, and ideological autonomy. What is a face, a foot, a hand, or a head, without a psyche to filter the phenomenological experiences of life? In these times, it sometimes feels as though the fullness of self-expression places us in the crosshairs of many societal isms and schisms; through his paintings, Tetteh Nartey offers a space for safety, the fullness and universality of the human experience, and the freedom for people to choose who they are and “what it means to be seen.” He thinks of the bodily features as parts of a whole coming together to work “to play one role.” Through his radiant cool palette, the artist offers us a register to imagine the interior lives of the subjects and remind us of our own. Part of what draws the eye are splashes of what the artist himself calls the “captivating allure” of the color blue. In Grace, he uses highly saturated colors to create a homescape ripe with color. A hand rests, just shy of a decorative doily reminiscent of the bird of paradise flower, atop a couch the color of turquoise. Knitted centerpieces and crochet doilies abounded in my own grandmother’s home. The doily reads like an echoing memory for those who grew up under the care of grandparents and elders. For centuries, turquoise stone has been prized for its calming qualities. The hands are blue, akin to the color of the expanse of the daytime sky. In this work, and others like Contestants, a pink underside of the palms of hands and the soles of feet are visible. That tonal shift is experimental, marking the artist’s own reflections and thinking on the precarity and frailty of the body as the pressures of capitalism, systemic inequality, and other forces act upon us. The pink marks the inner workings of the body’s circulatory system. Through lush colors and frenetic brushstrokes, Daniel Tetteh Nartey’s works examine the ways we inhabit our bodies, emotion, and memory in spite of the constraints the world seeks to place upon us.