OPIO YAW ASANTE: VISUAL ARTIST - illustrator, digital painter

Opio Yaw Asante is an art/spiritual name I took on at around the age of twenty-five; my given name being Horace Altimond Donovan. My birthplace is a small village on the interior foothills of the Blue Mountains, in north eastern Jamaica, called Shrewsbury. Shrewsbury is in the Parish of Portland. Nanny Town in the Blue Mountains was home to the Windward Maroons who were descended from the Asante people of Ghana in West Africa - my heritage.

I studied at the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts, Jamaica, and the University of the Arts, London. My areas of study include Ceramics, Sculpture, Painting and Graphic Design. I have participated in many exhibitions and was commissioned by The Organisation for Black-Arts Advancement and Learning Activities, London, to do a large bust of the Rt. Excellent Marcus Mosiah Garvey. I was an illustrator for children’s programmes with satellite television, in the UK, and was commissioned to create a large anatomical model of the knee joint for the BBC television programme, Body Matters. A great interest of mine is the regeneration of the local community. I have worked with neighbourhood groups and schools to creatively improve and brighten their environment.

Lines and drawing were my first love when I started taking art seriously in my mid-teens. I have come full circle over the past two years exploring lines and drawing, digitally. I am excited by the fluidity, colours and transparency in lines (see sections entitled "Two-Dimensional Designs" and "Original Digital Paintings" for more).

The spiritual cosmology of the Asante people is called Akan. Akan teaches that the universe was created by a Supreme Intelligence or Consciousness. The Akan spiritual thought has this Supreme Intelligence at the centre of existence. They have developed cultural symbols to portray their beliefs about the Supreme Intelligence, their attitudes towards It and It's creation. These cultural symbols are called Adinkra symbols. These symbols are integral within the new direction of my art. The Akan believe the Supreme Intelligence is spiritual in form and has put part of Its spiritual form into human beings as the human soul (kra). This soul in the human being never perishes. That is why the Akan say, when the human being dies, he/she is not dead. This soul continues. When a child is born, the Akan give the child a soul name (kra din) such as Kojo (boy's name) or Adjoa (girl's name) for the child born on Monday because that is the name for the day of the week the human soul manifests in this physical world. My soul name is Yaw, meaning that I was born on Thursday.

The function of Adinkra symbols is to help us to become better individuals and in extension to create a better humanity. My two-dimensional designs will incorporat Adinkra symbols and my desire is that my work will contribute to the creation of this better humanity and enhance the lives of those that experience it.