Bernard Akoi -Jackson is a high flying personality with countless performances draping from his garb of honour. Bernard is made of stage, presence, delivery in composition. His performances always bring back the sunshine days.

Ghanaian born energetic performance artist, Bernard Akoi -Jackson brings hope, joy, truth and redemption to ‘motherland ‘ through superlative and macabre performances.

He was born in one of the very popular cities in Africa, Accra. A city famous for its welcoming culture. Akwaaba is not a slang in Ghana, the city of Accra, has demonstrated over events, before, during and after colonial era that, the city welcomes you in.

Bernard was born in the year 1979, the declining period of Kwame Nkrumah’s Pan Africanism. At this period, Ghana was at her lowest ebb in the comity of Nations. Yet, it was also the period of renaissance for Ghana economy. Bernard birth came at the time truth must remain constant for Ghana to evolve from draconian shadows.

His father hailed from the Northern Region of the country while his mother came from the Volta part in the south. Both of them met in Kumasi. “My family is large and well traveled. So you will find us all scattered across the world. I spent close to ten years living in Botswana because my father worked there. Therefore, my siblings and I this expanded space of awareness and Pan Africanism. A global perception,” Bernard explained.

The mercurial performer got his early education in the College of Art, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, where he bagged an MFA in (Painting and Sculpture).

His works have featured in group and solo exhibitions in venues across Ghana, including Nubuke Foundation Accra, Goethe -Institut of African Studies, University of Ghana, Legon, Alliance Francaise, Kumasi, Accra and in Germany at the ACC Galerie, Weimar, Halle 14, Leipzig and Monte dos Giprestes, Sintra, Portugal.

Most works were largely performative, bringing together visual, verbal and textual metaphors. These are then fashioned, in recent times with elements of video and photography. Into participatory performances or object based installations. He often becomes the proverbial stand up comic, again an Esu Odara, moving between genres; painting, sculpture, dance, poetry, installation, photography and video to confront the complexities of his specific cultural moment.

Bernard Akoi -Jackson fell into the era of modern Ghana. A period of hope and truth. Immediately after his degree program, he participated in an artist residency program in Kofi Setordji’s ArtHAUS, Accra, Ghana in 2006. Bernard has subsequently facilitated and participated in International Artists Workshops such as SaNsA in Accra (2007) SaNsA in Kumasi (2009)and Xerem International Artists’ Residency Home and Abroad in Portugal (2010 ).

Bernard Akoi -Jackson’s writings, tracks the development of contemporary Ghanaian and African visual art and culture. He articles, poems essays can be found in ArtFOCUS Accra. He has written essays for several exhibitions and their catalogs.

The artist has used his works and performances to document on colonization and it’s continuing existence in modern times, through his performance in TimeTradeTravel. Also, his collection of performances have touched greatly on democracy, as he would not stop to express his views on identity as a notoriously contested concept in several ways.

Bernard gave an insight; “my work has considered this concept in several ways and what I have done several times is to deal with notions of identity construction, stereotyping and bureaucracy, as pertains to movement and space politics.”

Consistently, his performances have been able to correct the abuse of African culture nuances by Africans with their misconstrued and hybrid orientation of African culture.

Finally, apart from being a Ghanaian origin, Bernard Akoi -Jackson is a high flying personality with countless performances draping from his garb of honour. Bernard is made of stage, presence, delivery in composition. His performances always bring back the sunshine days.

Images /Bernard Akoi -Jackson archives /Google