Ghanaian-born artist Tijay Mohammed has showcased his work on both national and
international stages, gracing prestigious venues like the Katonah Museum of Art NY,
Hudson River Museum NY, Materials for the Arts NY, Art League Houston TX, Green
Drake Art Gallery PA, Gallery 1202 CA, Ravel d’ Art in Côte d’Ivoire, and The National
Museum of Ghana.
Tijay's impact extends beyond exhibition spaces; he has spearheaded
workshops and community-oriented projects for esteemed organizations, including
the Studio Museum Harlem, Brooklyn Museum, Sugar Hill Children’s Museum of Art &
Storytelling, Children’s Museum of Manhattan, Wallach Art Gallery, Lehman College,
University of Ghana, and Pinto Community Centre in Trinidad and Tobago.
His contributions have not gone unnoticed, garnering him various accolades and res-
idencies from renowned institutions such as The Laundromat Project, Wave Hill, Art
Bridge, Materials for the Arts, Harmattan Workshop in Nigeria, Global Crit Clinic, and
Asiko Artist Residency in Ghana. Grants from institutions like Arts Fund, the Bronx
Council on the Arts’ Artist for Community and New Work grant, and the Spanish Em-
bassy Ghana Painters Award further attest to his artistic prowess.
The artist currently resides in Bronx, NY and maintains a studio in Ghana that serves
as a sanctuary for visiting artists to interact with residents, promoting multicultural dialogue
through story circles and art workshops.
As an artist, I have a strong passion for exploring issues that affect my community and humanity at large.
My work explores the concept of 'excess' in the production and consumption of products, and offers a solution through the integration of materials reuse and up-cycling.
I create multimedia collages, site-specific installations, mixed media paintings, and public sculptures often viewed as group portraits that reimagine waste as valuable materials, revealing the aesthetic and conceptual beauty of discarded items and offering a hopeful perspective on the worthlessness often assigned to them.
By repurposing everyday objects such as fabric scraps, metro cards, jewelry, paper, photographs, and stories, I create poetic representations of pressing issues like migration, childcare, gender, social and environmental justice, while promoting recycling in response to climate change.
History is central to my creative process of reinterpreting objects and stories to evoke a sense of nostalgia for place, time, and utopian cultures, while also acknowledging the complexities of African and African American experiences. Through my interactive approach, I demonstrate a commitment to community, self-love, and appreciation, inspired by the Ghanaian Adinkra symbol 'Sankofa,' which means 'learning from the past to ensure a prosperous future.
As a futurist, I consider it my responsibility to make a positive impact in any community I am a part of, for the benefit of current and future generations.