Isshaq Ismail’s paintings confront the viewer with faces that resist expectation—eyes that wander, mouths that shift, features that collide. These are not portraits of individuals but visible states of mind: vulnerability, tension, desire, and unease. Working in acrylic, Ismail moves between thick, sculptural impasto and flattened, iconic forms, guided by what he calls ‘infantile semi-abstraction’—a direct, instinctive approach that prioritizes emotion over finish. Drawing from children’s drawings, cartoons, and folk imagery, his figures hover between the familiar and the unsettling, while color and materiality generate a physical, tactile tension. Rooted in Accra yet globally resonant, Ismail’s work demands recognition, asserting that imperfection and distortion can reveal deeper truths.
Isshaq Ismail’s paintings confront the viewer with faces that refuse to behave. Eyes appear at different scales, mouths stretch or harden into ambiguous expressions, and features collide rather than align. These are not portraits of individuals, but psychological states made visible—vulnerability, tension, desire, and unease rendered through distortion.
Working primarily in acrylic on canvas, Ismail treats paint as a physical substance. In some works, thick impasto builds sculptural surfaces where blocks of color press against one another with tactile force. In others, the image is flattened into graphic simplicity, the face reduced to an almost iconic form. Across both approaches runs what the artist describes as infantile semi-abstraction: a deliberate rejection of academic finish in favor of directness, instinct, and emotional clarity.
Drawing from the visual language of children’s drawings, cartoons, and folk imagery, Ismail’s figures hover between the familiar and the unsettling. Faces split, eyes stare in opposing directions, mouths hover between speech and silence. These distortions do not aim to shock; they articulate bodies under pressure—psychological, social, and existential—held together by gesture and color rather than likeness.
Color plays an active role in this tension. Reds, purples, greens, blues, and blacks are laid down in confident, unblended fields that collide rather than merge. The result is visual friction: the painting is felt physically before it is interpreted. Materiality and immediacy take precedence over narrative.
Rooted in Accra yet globally resonant, Ismail’s work insists on presence. His figures do not ask for sympathy or resolution; they demand recognition. In their awkwardness, distortion, and refusal of idealized beauty, they assert that imperfection can be a form of honesty—and that truth often emerges where form breaks down.