13a Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Boulevard, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Open: Daily 10am-10pm
Artist: Kojo Marfo
JD Malat Gallery, in collaboration with FYND, presents Beyond the Visible, a solo exhibition by Ghanaian-born, London-based artist Kojo Marfo (b. 1980). The exhibition begins with a simple proposition: no two people see the world in quite the same way. Through his imaginative compositions, Marfo invites viewers to look beyond immediate appearances and consider what might otherwise escape their attention.
Marfo’s practice is deeply rooted in his Ghanaian heritage, particularly the traditional Akan sculptures, carvings and ceremonial objects he encountered during his childhood. These early influences continue to inform his distinctive visual language, which he has developed through a concept he calls AfroGenesis. Drawing upon his cultural upbringing and experiences of living in different parts of the world, Marfo reimagines familiar forms to create something entirely his own. His paintings reflect a desire to preserve the richness of his cultural heritage while addressing questions that extend beyond geographical and cultural boundaries.
In Beyond the Visible, Marfo populates his canvases with enigmatic figures whose identities resist easy definition. Human faces take on animal characteristics, while horses, flowers and decorative motifs emerge within elaborate arrangements of colour and form. His figures appear at once familiar and strange, their exaggerated features and unexpected proportions challenging our instinct to recognise and categorise. Each composition suggests a story without revealing it entirely, leaving the viewer to construct meaning from what is presented.
This openness is fundamental to Marfo’s work. His figures resist fixed interpretations, allowing the same image to inspire entirely different responses depending on the experiences and associations each viewer brings to it. Rather than prescribing a particular reading, Marfo allows these interpretations to coexist, recognising that the meaning of an image is shaped as much by the person looking at it as by the artist who created it.
Throughout his practice, Marfo has used painting to examine the human condition and the ways in which people understand one another. His figures frequently transcend conventional distinctions of gender and cultural identity, reflecting his interest in what connects people despite their differences. Drawing upon his observations of society, he creates imagined worlds in which familiar human relationships take on unexpected forms, allowing overlooked aspects of everyday life to be approached from another perspective.
Beyond the Visible invites audiences to reconsider the act of looking itself. Marfo’s paintings reward sustained attention, revealing details and possible meanings that may escape an initial glance. By leaving his images open to interpretation, he reminds us that our understanding of the world is never complete, and that another person may discover something entirely different in what appears before us.
Marfo has exhibited internationally, with notable presentations including Crucible of Hope at the Heydar Aliyev Center in Baku, Azerbaijan (2024), and Africa Supernova at Kunsthal KAdE in Amersfoort, the Netherlands (2023). His solo exhibitions with JD Malat Gallery include Dreaming of Identity (2021), Gatekeepers of Heritage (2022), Crucible of Hope (2023) and HOME: Heart of My Existence (2025). His work is held in several public and private collections, including the Lithuanian National Museum of Art, Museu Inimá de Paula in Brazil, the Carla and Pieter Schulting Foundation in the Netherlands, and the Charles Collection in Washington, D.C.
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