Recongnizing Master Batik Artist Edward Lamptey: A Hero Hiding in Plain View
Karl Q. Botchway, Ph.D.
One of the unsung heroes in contemporary African Art who deserves recognition is Master Batik Artist and Painter Edward Lamptey. I describe him as a product of the post-colonial Ghana School of Art. Labouring in obscurity but in plain view, he has produced important works not only in Batik Art but in Textile Designs and Paintings.
His body of work involves the use of African motifs. These motifs serve as his inspiration and are central to his vocation and creativity.
For Edward Lamptey, these beautiful motifs, rightly identified, serve as a repository of information about African belief systems and culture. These motifs in the form of symbols represent concepts personified in human and animal forms and geometric shapes. In fact, he sees them as a profound philosophical statement on African cosmology. His artistry borrows largely from the vocabulary of Yoruba and Akan symbols. Using these motifs, his art communicates concepts about African societies and invites his viewers to question how belief systems hold African societies together. As he pointed out in an interview, “My work with motifs spans a period of over twenty years. As a master Batik Artist and painter, I have carved a niche creating wall hanging Batiks to tell stories about African societies and African cultures.”
My paintings over the years selectively incorporate these African motifs to tell stories. “You can see me as an Artistic Griot keeping alive our collective memories and history.
Edward Lamptey was born in 1957 in Osu, Accra, Ghana. He had his secondary school education at Odorgono Secondary School in Accra, Ghana. As he narrates, he began drawing at a very tender age on whatever he could set my eyes upon.
What he fancied most was reproducing pictures of colonial historical figures, which he found in library books. Not surprisingly, Fine Arts was one of his majors for his secondary school final exams. He subsequently enrolled at the Polytechnic in Ibadan, Nigeria, where he specialized in painting with textile as his minor area of specialization.
Mr. Lamptey has had an extensive exhibition history over the past twenty years. Some of them are institutional, while others are personal, following the calendrical cycle of major art and cultural events in Ghana and Nigeria. Since 1996, he has been part of Group exhibitions or has had his own solo exhibitions. He has participated in all the Black Heritage Festivals, from Badagry to Abuja, in Nigeria.
He has featured his works at all the PANAFEST Festivals in Ghana since 1997. And since 2016, he has participated in all Emancipation Day Programmes, showcasing his works in Batik Art. To his credit, he has been instrumental in organizing training workshops in Batik Art as a tool for economic empowerment with several NGOs in Ghana.
Master Batik Artist in a workshop demonstration, Edward Lamptey Art Studios, Accra, Ghana, 2018
In April 2019, he organized the Contemporary African Batik Training Workshop with the Rural Africa Development Foundation (RADeF), in Kwaso – Okorase, Ejisu, Ashanti Region.
Similarly, in April 2018 and 2019, he organized a Batik Art Exhibition and Workshop at the Department of Dance, School of Performance Art, University of Ghana. At the International Children’s Arts and Cultural Festival (KIDDAFEST) in Accra, 2018, he was a principal organizer in Batik Art Training.
To further promote art, he created the Tourism Society of Ghana and has been instrumental in training both international and local students in the basics of Batik Art.
Let us celebrate our unsung heroes by recognizing those who keep art alive. Edward Lamptey is one of such heroes and a Master Batik Artist and Painter.
