BIO

Ghanaian-born artist Tijay Mohammed has exhibited his works national and internationally, including features at Katonah Museum of Art NY, Hudson River Museum NY, Materials for the Arts NY, Art League Huston, Longwood Art Gallery NY, Green Drake Art Gallery PA,Gallery 1202 CA, and The National Museum of Ghana.

Tijay has also organized workshops and community-based projects for organizations including the Studio Museum Harlem NY, Hudson River Museum NY, Brooklyn Museum NY, Sugar Hill Children’s Museum of Art & Storytelling NY, Children’s Museum of Manhattan NY, Wallach Art Gallery NY, University of Ghana and Pinto Community Centre Trinidad and Tobago. 

In addition, he has received numerous accolades and residencies from The Laundromat Project NY, Children’s Museum of Manhattan NY, Hudson River Museum NY, Materials for the Arts NY, Wave Hill NY, Ravel d’Art Cote d’ivore, Harmattan Workshop Nigeria, Global Crit Clinic and Asiko Artist Residency Ghana.

Among many grants, Tijay is a recipient of Arts Fund, Artist for Community and New Work grant from the Bronx Council on the Arts, and the Spanish Embassy Ghana Painters Award. he is committed to working with the diverse communities with which he surrounds himself.

The artist currently resides in The Bronx NY and also maintains a studio in Ghana which serves as a sanctuary for visiting artists to interact with local residents, promoting multicultural dialogue through story circles and art workshops, a source of motivation for him in both his studio and teaching practice.

As an Artist, I consistently demonstrate keen interest in addressing issues that confront my community and humanity. My works addresses the issues of ‘excess’ in both production and consumption of countless products by integrating the concept of materials reuse and upcycling I create multimedia site-specific installations, collage and paintings, which are viewed as group portraits that communicate the hopefulness, aesthetic and conceptual beauty of wastes of our lives that may have been ignored or worthless to their bearers, yet valuable for my inventions.

My perceptive use of commonly found objects (Fabric scraps, metro cards, jewelries, cardboards, papers, photographs, stories, etc.) creates poetic representations of real-world issues such as migration, childcare, gender, social and environmental justice.

whilst encouraging material reuse and upcycling in reference to climate change.

History plays an essential role in my process of repurposing objects and stories to reflect the nostalgia of place and time, utopian cultures, and traditions in juxtaposition to the complexities of the African and African American and minority experiences.

The interactive process I use is inspired by “Sankofa” a Ghanaian Adinkra symbol which means to learning from the past for a prosperous future”, demonstrates a commitment to community, self-love, and appreciation, I see my audience as collaborators and participants in soliciting materials and creating story circles around my theme. As a futurist I deem it a responsibility to positively impact any community I find myself in for the enhancement of this and generations yet unborn.