About
the Artist
Tracy Naa Koshie Thompson, PhD. (b. 1993), is a Ghanaian artist living and working in Accra. She is an alumnus of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in Kumasi, Ghana. Thompson has an independent practice, exploring plasticity, self-generative systems in polymer materials and reverse-engineering foods. These explorations are integral to her interest in the non-human agency and ecologies that connect foods to geological formations, thermal fluxes, decomposition, and microbial systems that deconstruct familiar notions of foods and still-life traditions. These are explored through site-specific installations and process-based forms. These conceptions are profoundly influenced by the emancipatory teachings of the pedagogue, Prof. karî’kạchä seid’ou. Thompson is currently experimenting with food cartography (micro-topography) by blending aspects of geology, digital morphogenesis, landscape, and still-life. This involves microscopy, digital elevation modelling (DEM) / 3D terrain modelling, and 3D-printing — all generated from the microstructures of foods.
Exhibitions
2024 — The Allegory of Decoy; Galerie Hubert Winter and BlaxTARLINES; Vienna (Austria)
2024 — Busan Biennale: Seeing in the Dark; Busan Museum of Contemporary Art; Busan (South Korea)
2024 — Morphogenesis: Reverse-Engineering Foods and Still-Life; Solo Exhibition (PhD Viva Voce) | Materials Engineering Lab, KNUST; Kumasi (Ghana)
2024 — Worlds within Worlds: Eruptions from a “still-life” Microverse; Solo Exhibition | Apex University College (Advanced Business College); Accra (Ghana)
2023 — Silent Invasions: The Art of Material Hacking; Amasaka Gallery, Vodoo Art, Weaverbird, Underground Kampala and BlaxTARLINES; Masaka (Uganda)
2023 — From the Void came Gifts of the Cosmos; 35th Ljubljana Biennale of Graphic Arts; Ljubljana (Slovenia)
2023 — 'What'Chu Looking At? Who You Speaking With?' A Gazing All Round; Spazju Kreattiv; Valletta (Malta)
2022 — Unraveling The (Under-) Development Complex; SAVVY Contemporary; Berlin (Germany)
2022 — The Powerhouse; ArtxAfrica, Kunstmuseum Museumsmeile and The KNUST Museum; Bonn (Germany) and Kumasi (Ghana)
2022 — Existing Otherwise - Future of Coexistence; Savannah Centre for Contemporary Art, Redclay and Nkrumah Voli-ni; Tamale (Ghana)
2021 — Matières Sensibles ‘Of Materials and Things’; Exit Frame Collective (Ghana) and Artists-in-Residence at La Condition Publique, Saison Africa 2020; Roubaix (France)
2021 — Ecologies and Politics of the Living; Vienna Biennale for Change 2021, University of Applied Arts Vienna and Angewandte Innovation Lab; Vienna (Austria)
2021 — A Diagnosis of Time: Unlearn What You Have Learned; Savannah Centre for Contemporary Art Tamale and ARoS Aarhus Art Museum; Tamale (Ghana)
2021 — This is not Africa - Unlearn What You Have Learned; ARoS Aarhus Art Museum; Aarhus (Denmark)
2020 — 1st Stellenbosch Triennale: Tomorrow There Will Be More of Us; Stellenbosch Outdoor Sculpture Trust South; Stellenbosch (South Africa)
2019 — UmStand der Dinge: A State of Affairs; HFBK Hamburg; Hamburg (Germany)
2019 — Rundgang 2019; Städelschule; Frankfurt (Germany)
2017 — Orderly Disorderly; blaxTARLINES KUMASI; Accra (Ghana)
2016 — Cornfields in Accra; blaxTARLINES KUMASI; Accra (Ghana)
Curating
2024 — Constellations Part 2: Figures in Webs and Ripples of Space; Group Exhibition | w/ Katherine Finerty and Nuna Adisenu-Doe; Gallery 1957 — Accra (Ghana)
2024 — Constellations Part 1: Figures on Earth & Beyond; Group Exhibition | w/ Katherine Finerty and Nuna Adisenu-Doe; Gallery 1957 — London (UK)
2023 — Silent Invasions: The Art of Material Hacking; Group Exhibition | w/ Sascia Bailer, Juliy Gyemant, Nantume Violet, and Zitoni Tristan; Amasaka Gallery — Masaka (Uganda)
2023 — A Thousand Disguises; Priscilla Kennedy (Artist, 2022 Yaa Asantewaa Women’s Art Prize Winner); Gallery 1957 — Accra (Ghana)
2023 — Kum Ase: A Field Filled With Golden Spikes; Al-Hassan Issah (Artist); Compound House Gallery — Accra, Kumasi and Tamale (Ghana)
2022 — Some Things Stay Broken; Jonathan Okoronkwo (Artist); Gallery 1957 — Accra (Ghana)
2022 — CHRIS-SIS: Feast of the Sacred Heart; Samuel Baah Kortey (Artist); Compound House Gallery — Accra (Ghana)
2022 — CHRIS-SIS: The Experimental Joke; Samuel Baah Kortey (Artist); 1822 - Forum — Frankfurt (Germany)
2020 — Akutia: Blindfolding the Sun and the Poetics of Peace; A Retrospective of Agyeman Ossei; Savannah Centre for Contemporary Art (SCCA) — Tamale (Ghana)
Talks/Workshops
2024 — TheMuseumsLab 2024; The National Museum — Accra (Ghana)
2024 — Remote Sensing Emergent Worlds; Foundation for Contemporary Art - Ghana — Accra (Ghana)
2024 — Decoys with Food; Palaver in the Dark | Artist Talk 1| Busan Museum of Contemporary Art — Busan (South Korea)
2022 — Symposium 2022: Humans, Fungi, Rottenness, and the Future of Soil; Norwegian BioArt Arena (NOBA); Vitenparken Campus — Ås (Norway)
2022 — 1st Senior High Schools Visual Art Festival; Centre for National Culture (CNC) of Sekondi-Takoradi Metropolitan Assembly, Youth Centre — Sekondi (Ghana)
2021 — Career Pathways in Arts; Visual Arts Block; Archbishop Porter Girls' Senior High School — Takoradi (Ghana)
2021 — Critlab 2021; Exit Frame Collective; KNUST Museum and blaxTARLINES Space — Kumasi (Ghana)
2021 — Duɣ’bu Art Workshop; Sanatu Zambang Studios; Savannah Centre for Contemporary Art (SCCA) — Tamale (Ghana)
2021 — Embracing the Traumatic in the Aesthetic Unconscious; Goethe-Institut Ghana; Nubuke Foundation — Accra (Ghana)
2021 — Ecologies and Politics of The Living; Angewandte Innovation Lab — Vienna (Austria)
2019 — Streams of Consciousness; Curated by Dr. Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung; 12th Bamako Encounters Photography Biennale — Bamako (Mali)
2019 — On Universality and Multiplicity: Curating from the Void; KfW Stiftung and DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program; daadgalerie — Berlin (Germany)
2017 — Art Talk w/ Tracy Thompson; The Studio Accra; #artTalk — Accra (Ghana)
Education
2019-2024 — PhD. Painting (Fine Art); Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) — Kumasi (Ghana)
2018-2019 — Städelschule Exchange Programme; Städelschule — Frankfurt (Germany)
2017-2019 — MFA. Painting and Sculpture (Fine Art); Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) — Kumasi (Ghana)
2013-2017 — BFA. Painting (Fine Art); Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) — Kumasi (Ghana)
Publications
Busan Biennale 2024 Catalogue
by Vera Mey and Philippe Pirotte
Busan Biennale Organizing Committee — Busan (South Korea)
New Perspectives: Contemporary Art from Ghana
by Elisabeth Prah and Bernard Akoi-Jackson
Nuvo Publishing — London (UK)
Existing Otherwise
by Solvej Helweg Ovesen and Ute Müller-Tischler
Kerber — Berlin (Germany)
Ubuntu, A Lucid Dream
Magazine Palais #32
Palais de Tokyo — Paris (France)
Ecologies & Politics of the Living
by Gerald Bast, Elisabeth Falkensteiner, Ibrahim Mahama and Baerbel Mueller
University of Applied Arts Vienna — Vienna (Austria)
Contemporary Art in Ghana: A Conversation with kąrî’kachä seid’ou
Ghana Studies (2023) Volume 25, 194-206
University of Wisconsin Press — Wisconsin (USA)
Transforming Art from Commodity to Gift: kąrî'kạchä seid'ou's Silent Revolution in the Kumasi College of Art
blaxTARLINES, African Arts (2021) Volume 54, Issue 2:22–25
Regents of the University of California — Oakland (USA)
Talking, Stuttering, Speaking Whilst Listening Intently for a Promise of Egalitarian Regeneration: A Five Way Conversation
blaxTARLINES, African Arts (2021) Volume 54, Issue 2:12–21
Regents of the University of California — Oakland (USA)
For the latest on exhibitions, art commissions, events and other enquiries. ↓
© 2025 Tracy Naa Koshie Thompson.
All Rights Reserved.
Accra, GH
Built by: iametetere
