Papa Essel was born in Ghana in 1968, studying painting at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Kumasi (KNUST) from 1993–96, before relocating to England in 1996 to obtain a Post Graduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) in Art and Design from the Institute of Education at the University of London. Informed by Akan textiles and Adynkra symbols, Essel’s work explores a complex network of themes focusing on Africa's interactions with the Western world, as well as racial and diasporic issues.
Artist Papa Essel (né Emmanuel Vincent Essel) was born in 1968 at Aboso, a gold mining town in the Western Region of Ghana. He pursued his BA and MFA in painting at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Kumasi (KNUST) from 1993–96. The university has trained many renowned artists who have subsequently established their names in Ghana and abroad, including El Anatsui, Atta Kwami, and Godfried Donkor, who later migrated to England. In 1996, Essel also relocated to England to obtain a Post Graduate Certificate in Education in Art and Design from the Institute of Education at the University of London. His first exhibition, From Kumasi to Kensington, was held at the 198 Gallery, London, in 2000.
Essel's work encompasses a wide variety of themes, including economic decline, war, environmental matters, male-female relationships, racial and spiritual issues, the gold industry, and life in diaspora. Essel stated that painting to him ‘is a form of dialogue. It entails more than mere image-making for decoration. It involves the artist interrogating his environment and the general taken-for-granted attitudes of society. For me, it touches everything – political to spiritual, personal to social’ (198 Gallery). His chosen media include oils, watercolours, and acrylics on different surfaces, and his balanced compositions subtly incorporate both representational imagery and textual elements, this combination forming a notable aspect of Essel's art. He asserts that ‘word and image are two vital components in the presentation and dissemination of information, ideas and aesthetics. The written word becomes a text representing an image of the spoken word. [...] Once painted these words/texts become images in themselves’ (198 Gallery). Essel is interested in the interaction between positive and negative spaces, and the intricate patterns that result from their arrangement in colour or monochrome. His fascination with the relationship between words and images has led him to incorporate proverbs and aesthetic elements from Akan textile traditions into his work, where symbols signifying proverbs and beliefs are printed on plain cloth. These Akan textiles served not just as functional items, but also as powerful symbols of social status and dominion. Moreover, the very act of weaving these textiles carried profound mythological significance and was often imbued with ceremonial importance. Essel's artwork also draws inspiration from other cultural sources, including the Adinkra symbols of the Asante people, the wall art created by the inhabitants of Northern Ghana, and the Asafo flags of the Fantes, an ethnic group predominantly found in the central coastal region of Ghana, whose flags represent a fusion of Akan proverbs, visual illustrations, and European heraldic traditions. The crucial role of proverbs in shaping the understanding of life is prominent in Essel's work Life's Proverbs (2002). This large-scale, monochromatic painting featured proverbs both in their English textual form and through evocative Adinkra symbols. Originally from the Gyaman people of Ghana and the Ivory Coast, these symbols functioned much like modern emojis, representing a wide range of values, principles, aphorisms, often with humour. In Ghana, these symbols are typically encountered on textiles, but they are also present in other forms of visual culture. They can be seen on objects such as stools, military shrines, and popular sign paintings, testifying to their integral role in the cultural fabric of the region.
Essel has extensively addressed the complexities of diasporic life in his work, particularly racial issues. A clear example of this is his piece, Blackening of the Whitescape (2004). In this artwork, a triangular area at the canvas's centre is filled with geometric patterns against which outlined figures are positioned. These figures, like other figurative elements in Essel's work, are typically flat, lacking the depth that suggests three-dimensionality, though there are exceptions seen in specific clothing and gestural details. The canvas area outside the central triangle is densely populated with words, Adinkra symbols, and footprints. The footprints seem to imply movement and migration, reflecting the journey many Black people took to reach the UK. This notion is reinforced by the phrase ‘Welcome to Tilbury’, located to the left of the triangular area, referring to a significant moment in the history of UK immigration. Tilbury docks was the disembarkation point for the SS Empire Windrush in 1948, marking the start of mass migration from the West Indies to the UK. As Carol Magee pointed out in her comprehensive essay on Papa Essel’s art, ‘The Adinkra symbols used in this piece evoke proverbs that […] speak to how one might be in the world. They celebrate the strength, love, compassion, hardiness, perseverance, and confidence of blacks (past and present) in the UK’ (Magee 2010, p. 19). Alongside his artistic pursuits, Essel teaches art at the Brooksband School, Elland. His work is not currently represented in UK public collections.