“My art is about getting the knowledge out there.”
Had a lovely conversation with @artby.joie the other day, we discussed all about queer rights, mental health in Ghana and how these topics find their place in her art !
Read more on Selective Taste’s substack – Link in bio 🤍
Thank you Joie for your time and honesty.
Thank you @thekukua for initiating this 💫
Joie Graham is an emerging Ghanaian artist whose conceptual approach to their work involves using surrealism and the recurring motif of aliens with large, expressive eyes to explore queer rights and mental health stigma in Ghana. These alien figures serve as metaphors for those treated as outsiders—the “weird and ostracized from society”—while their prominent eyes reflect Graham’s belief that “eyes are the window to the soul and they never lie.” Their vibrant color palette draws viewers in, making difficult subjects feel less intimidating and more approachable.
We invite you to the viewing and soiree of Joie Graham’s debut presentation Stay With Me, Chaos Runs Here, this coming Friday, January 23, 2026 at Villa Veghana. RSVP via the link in our bio.
In a world of bold colours and lines, Joie Graham dreams up possibilities for queer African communities to navigate their desire for cultural belonging. In her debut presentation, Stay With Me, Chaos Runs Here, Graham explores ideas of reconciling a reality that alienates ones from their cultural community and ways of validating these unique identities.
Inspired by Shakia Asamoah’s essay “Finding Our Way Home,” Joie Graham creates a poetic topography of a child of the African diaspora in which she addresses questions of visibility, physicality and cultural belonging. In raw and emotionally charged illustrative compositions, she allows vulnerability to shape her art, portraying the artist’s journey through the challenges of losing her familial community and finding alternative safe spaces to commune with fellow queers.
We look forward to welcoming you.
"Zoning Out" 50×40
A piece inspired by the struggle of not being present and detaching myself from reality whenever life or even a conversation is not going the way I had planned it would go. Mentally evading the problem till it goes away when in reality it never really does go away till it's faced head on.
This painting titled "The distance between us" shows two African fairies so close yet so far,as religion, culture, and society are keeping them apart.The distance in reality non-existent but the pressures of these things make the distance unbearable.
