Story; Rahamatu-Lahi Zakaria
In March of 2019, the Savannah Centre for Contemporary Art (SCCA) opened the center by showcasing the work of renowned Ghanaian modernist art, Galle Winston Kofi Dawson. The exhibition was a retrospective on the work of the artist.
The exhibition included a great number of works from the artist that spanned for five decades such as soil painting, woodcut, ink and line drawing, acrylic collage, sculpture, and installation. These arts work also informs people that the artist likes experimentation and innovations while working.
With this exhibition, the SCCA celebrated the life and work of Galle Winston Kofi Dawson, one of the earliest modernist Ghanaian artists.
Galle Winston Kofi Dawson who retired from the Information service was born in 1940. He had his childhood in Takoradi in the Western region. but his parents hailed from Keta in the Volta region. He attended Kwame Nkrumah University of Science Technology where he studied Fine Arts and also proceed to the school of Slade in Landon also to study Fine Arts.
His work is an infusion of the kind of environment he lives in. He is also an active member of the Ghana Association of Visual artists. He has participated in a number of workshops. This includes the Pan African Circle of Artists, Art in Action and ARTHaus. He has exhibited in the United Kingdom, the United States, France, Senegal, Nigeria, and several parts of Ghana.
Mr. Dawson who is very passionate about art development in the Ghanaian society believes that we need to provide more learning materials to students offering visual art in our senior high school so they can learn and practice what they are been taught in schools.
He also encouraged people to make good use of the SCCA owned by renowned Ghanaian International artists, Ibrahim Mahama. Mr. Dawson says the SSCA was a bit of surprise to the art community in the Ghanaian art space since they we not expecting an individual to come out with such edifice.
They have always talked about having a space like that and even their president has said that on numerous media platforms in the country. With so much talk, the organization has not been able to put up such an edifice.
The Centre he says will go a long way to help in the development of arts in the region and the country as well.