ANNOBIL CONTEMPORARY GALLERY
East Legon, Accra, Ghana
Till 30 June 2026
Curator: Kofi Setordji
Annobil Contemporary Gallery, Ghana’s newest art gallery, launches with Helen Annobil: Terra Firma, a major debut exhibition by an unknown English fine art genius, Helen Annobil. It is a phenomenal tale of the artist’s self-discovery and rebirth in Ghana, and the resolution of her approach, after about sixty years of quite development as an artist-nurse in England. Hence ‘Terra Firma’, alluding to the fact that she found her feet in Ghana.
This unprecedented exhibition features work spanning the three short years Helen Annobil has been in Ghana, 2023 to 2025. The homeland of her husband, Ishmael Annobil, Ghana swept her off her feet with its deeply expressive, unmanicured landscapes, dynamic roadside culture, brave architecture, disarming openness, musicality, ritual, and its unapologetic relationship with colour. These factors colluded in opening up and energizing her palette, literally.
The result is pure power: expressionistic and surrealistic landscapes and still life moments, captured in a single day or two, on bigger canvasses than she had ever attempted before. The works exemplify Helen Annobil’s penchant for subverting proportionality, symmetry, and perspective. If there are any echoes of European masters such a Turner, Constable, Kandinsky, Monet, etc., they are merely evidence of a common European artistic vernacular that she updates robustly.
Curated by the pre-eminent Ghanaian artist, Kofi Setordji, Helen Annobil : Terra Firma is guaranteed a place in Ghanaian and indeed world art history. Winner of the Leisure Award Sculptor of the Year Prize, 1990 and recipient of the inaugural Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Creative Arts Fellowship, in 2008, Setordji’s curatorial approach to Terra Firma celebrates the diversity of Helen Annobil’s palette, highlighting in a stylish, unlaboured way her various styles, themes and use of colour.
“Helen obviously paints from the heart, and with joy. She is a powerful painter with a spellbinding vision. She interprets the Ghanaian landscape with her remarkable mastery of colour and audacity. This is a historic exhibition for Ghana and Britain, and I am proud to be its curator,” says Kofi Setordji.
Terra Firma is a mould-breaking statement on all fronts. The mentality, rationale and vision behind the works are purely Helen Annobil’s own, seeded in her childhood by her talented artist and poet father, Maurice Jackson. This is underpinned by her shrewd and masterly technique, an eye for visual narrative, poetics, humour and exquisite imagination, and majestic use of colour. Any echoes of the European greats such a Turner, Constable, Kandinsky, Monet, Lautrec, are merely evidence of a common European artistic language — vernacular.
“I feel fortunate to have been able to develop my own voice out of my seminal influences, including my father’s, and to be able to contribute my bit to British art history, to Ghanaian art history, and to world art history. My works in Terra Firma were inspired almost exclusively by Ghanaian landscapes and flora. It is inevitable – I live here and I love Ghana. My art landed on solid ground here,” says Helen Annobil.
As an autodidact, Helen Annobil’s expressive language stems from a highly sensitive internal cosmos. She doesn’t suffer the pessimism of academic orthodoxy or mediation, so she is fearless when pushing the boundaries of art. Furthermore, Helen Annobil’s practice is purely organic, without conceptual bureaucracy, but deeply conceptual in essence, on her own terms. Though her ‘stream of consciousness’ and blinding speed tend to disguise that innately conceptual underpinning.
Commenting on the exhibition, the founder of the gallery, Ishmael Fiifi Annobil, renowned art critique, poet, award winning filmmaker, and Helen Annobil’s husband, enthused:
“Annobil Contemporary was set up as a dynamic showcase for art from all cultures. Terra Firma establishes that dream indelibly and raises the bar for art curation in Ghana. Touchingly, the artist in our inaugural show is my own wife, and the curator is my high school classmate — it is touchingly personal.”
Helen Annobil: Terra Firma runs from till 30 June 2026
Address:
6 George Amewuda Street
Adjiriganor, East Legon
Accra, Chana
Tel: +233 (0) 5300 36168
www.annobilcontemporary.com
Hours:
Monday - Saturday: 10 am to 7pm
Sunday and Bank Holidays: Open for special gastro events, function and specialist markets (check before setting off).
About the Gallery: Annobil Contemporary was founded by Ishmael Fiif Annobil, the Ghanaian poet, multi-award-winning filmmaker, art critic, photographer, emblemist, and digital composer. The gallery is dedicated to celebrating great art across borders, while updating the role of Africa from that of supplier of art to the outside world, to that of a centre for international exposition. Through this strategy, the founder challenges the hackneyed definitions of African art which continue to distort its meaning to this day. Annobil Contemporary incorporates Obsidian Tavern, a bohemian watering hole that doubles as a second art gallery, and The Kiln, a gift shop boasting exquisite traditional pottery and other craft. It has an open-house policy which encourages spontaneous performance, recitals, and artistic intervention.
Photos:
1: Aburi I, Acrylic on canvas, Dimensions: 5’x7, 2024 | Photo by Ishmael Annobil ©
2. Terra Firma, Acrylic on canvas, 101.5x281.5cm, 2025 | Photo by Ishmael Annobil ©
3. Eternal Plantation, Acrylic on canvas, 122x152.5cm, 2025 | Photo by Ishmael Annobil ©
4. February, Acrylic on canvas, 101.5x152.3cm, 2025 / Photo by Ishmael Annobil ©
