Northern Ghanaian Women’s Artistry : Visualizing Culture

Many existing studies present women’s artistry as a consistent and enduring element of Indigenous culture, emphasizing overarching systems of artistic practices, aesthetic goals, and symbolic repertoires. Brittany Sheldon complicates this image within Northern Ghanaian Women’s Artistry: Visualizing Culture by emphasizing variations in individual training, knowledge, experience, techniques, skills, and ideas that inevitably exist among artists and within their communities. This book traces women’s wall painting, known as bambɔlse, in northern Ghana. Based on extensive observations and numerous interviews, Sheldon digs into women artists’ experiences and knowledge and describes their technical processes. This book delves into the history of bambɔlse, how this tradition has changed over time, and how it is tied to understandings of gender, social hierarchy, cultural identity, and memory. Rather than portraying the tradition as static, Sheldon demonstrates how women adapt their artistry to changing circumstances, including shifting preferences, incentives, markets, and audiences. With its vivid descriptions and detailed discussions, this book brings women artists and their wall paintings to life for readers, and, as such, it is relevant to scholars and students of African art history, anthropology, and gender studies.