UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The Penn State College of Arts and Architecture’s School of Visual Arts will continue its annual Anderson Lecture Series by hosting artist Yaw Owusu at 11:30 a.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 21. The lecture, which is free and open to the public, will be held in Foster Auditorium, located in Paterno Library at University Park, and on Zoom.
The Anderson Lecture Series is supported by the John M. Anderson Endowment, named in honor of the professor emeritus who was an Evan Pugh research professor of philosophy and the first director of Penn State’s Institute for the Arts and Humanities.
Owusu, who lives and works in New York, creates sculptural paintings and installations by transforming otherwise “worthless” materials into valuable objects and encounters. He works with small-denomination coins, stainless steel, wood, copper, found objects and social engagements, employing processes such as oxidation, plating and other experimental methods that alter the texture and color of materials, mirroring the minting of coins today.
His work questions the foundations of contemporary economies and exploring the shifting nature of value across cultural and economic contexts. With a sense of playful alchemy, Owusu’s approach embraces the complexities of currency, symbolism and meaning.
“My work penetrates the histories of trade, exchange, and labor to question the foundations of contemporary economies,” Owusu explained in an artist statement. “The work explores the transient nature of value across varied cultural and economic contexts — an approach rooted in a deep sense of playful alchemy that embraces the complexity of currency, symbolism and meaning.”
Examples such as the copper-plated steel Ghana pesewas, minted by the Royal Canadian Mint in an unsuccessful attempt to curb inflation since 2007, and the U.S. penny featuring Abraham Lincoln’s image, Owusu’s art interrogates questions of economic independence and freedom.
Influenced by urban landscapes, architecture, historic iconography and abstraction, his compositions juxtapose varied currencies and materials to explore how value is created, transformed and deconstructed. These installations and social engagements reflect the complex systems that shape present-day political and economic realities. Though they appear dense and durable, the works remain in flux, continually responding to their environments and provoking reflection on the instability of value itself.
Owusu’s work has been exhibited internationally in both private and public institutions, including The Brooklyn Museum, Museum of African Contemporary Art Al Maaden, Institute of Contemporary Art San Diego, Wereldmuseum Leiden, Sotheby’s Institute New York, Gallery 1957 (London and Accra), Efie Gallery (UAE), Ross + Kramer Gallery (New York), Christie’s London, Johnson Lowe Gallery (Atlanta), University of Delaware, and the Museum of Science and Technology Ghana.
His works are part of the permanent collections of The World Bank, Meta, the Presidential Residence of Ghana, Foundation H (Madagascar), Wells Fargo (USA), Access Bank, the Museum of African Contemporary Art Al Maaden (Marrakech, Morocco) and the Shylon Museum (Nigeria). His art and ideas have been featured in Nka Journal, Architectural Digest, Gulf News, Khaleej Times and Time Out New York.
Owusu is the recipient of the 2018 Kuenyehia Art Prize for Contemporary Ghanaian Art. He earned a bachelor of fine arts degree from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology and a master of fine arts in Integrated practices from Pratt Institute, where he received the Pratt Circle Honorary Award.