Acrylic and edible clay on canvas
180 x 180 cm
In Seprewa Blues, Kelvin Haizel translates rhythm into texture and touch. A deep field of dark teal, azure, and oxblood unfolds across the canvas—colors that pulse with the tonal depth of Highlife’s ancestral strings. During the production of this series, Haizel intentionally maintained a constant loop of Highlife music in the studio while reading John Collins’s Highlife Giants: West African Dance Band Pioneers, channeling its energy into each gesture.
Near the lower edge, horizontal tassels stretch in quiet procession, their frayed ends recalling both the vibration of the seprewa harp and the hum of a refrain carried through time. Haizel’s process is meticulous and intuitive: threads are broken one by one; canvas is shredded, folded inward, and stitched back together. Alongside these seams, small tally marks appear - notations of labor and endurance, a rhythm of reckoning. Each mark counts not days but gestures, each thread a measure of persistence and memory.
The surface, layered with acrylic and edible clay, carries a palpable weight. Pigment settles into the crevices of the material like sound into silence, creating a visual music that feels both ancient and immediate. As a metaphor, the painting reflects a key cultural shift in the evolution of Ghanaian Highlife: the emergence of “Odonson” or Ashanti Blues in the 1930s, when the Fante ‘osibisaaba’ replaced by the “Seprewa harp” with guitar. Just as that sonic evolution demonstrates how tradition adapts, resists, and endures, Seprewa Blues re-sounds and re-felts rhythm, memory, and transformation through paint, clay, and thread.
Acrylic and edible clay on canvas
180 x 180 cm
In Textured Frequency, Kelvin Haizel translates sound into color—an airy composition that hums with luminous energy. Swathes of pastel blue, peach, and pale orange ripple across the surface, their rise and fall recalling the undulating motion of sound waves, or the improvisational flow of Highlife’s guitar lines. The horizontal tassels near the base of the canvas anchor this rhythm, forming a visual bassline from which color and movement ascend.
Created to the looping soundtrack of Highlife music, the painting absorbs its pulse and phrasing. Haizel’s process remains deeply embodied: stitching, unraveling, counting, and layering. Threads are broken and marked in tallies—gestures of endurance that transform repetition into rhythm, labour into resonance.
Through acrylic and edible clay, Haizel conjures what he calls “painted sound”: a translation of Ghana’s sonic past into material form. If Seprewa Blues recalls the timbre of harp strings, Textured Frequency moves toward the shimmer of the electric guitar—lighter, brighter, yet equally steeped in memory. The result is a visual tempo of transformation, an ode to the evolution of rhythm itself.
Acrylic and edible clay on canvas
150 x 150 cm
In Eye of the Ocean I, Haizel translates the rhythm of sound into layered pigment and texture. Cascading drips of pastel and sky blues descend from the top of the canvas, their vertical lines suggestive of string vibrations, while at the base a circular form emerges, punctuated with bursts of oxblood, terracotta, orange, and washes of peach. This convergence of color mirrors the layered complexity of Highlife music—the way melody, rhythm, and improvisation coalesce into a singular pulse.
Acrylic and edible clay create a tactile, responsive surface. Pigment settles into the folds and ridges of the material, capturing both the artist’s hand and the passage of time. Each drip, each color shift, functions as a sonic gesture: not to depict music, but to evoke it. Eye of the Ocean I embodies the emotional residue of cultural and musical shifts, a meditation on rhythm, resonance, and the persistence of memory through texture and color.
Acrylic and edible clay on canvas
150 x 150 cm
Cooler in tone and more subdued in gesture, Eye of the Ocean II continues Haizel’s exploration of rhythm and resonance, yet turns inward. Drips of turquoise, cerulean, and soft sky blue descend across the canvas, converging near the bottom in a soft U-shaped formation—an almost-eye, a vortex not yet closed. Occasional bursts of coral red, oxblood, milky white, olive green, and varying shades of light and dark brown punctuate the surface like subtle echoes, lending a quiet pulse to the dominant cool tones. The composition feels suspended, as if holding its breath between motion and stillness.
Here, the artist’s “painted sounds” shift toward silence. Acrylic and edible clay merge into a tactile skin that remembers touch, weight, and pause. Each drip and color shift functions as a visual rhythm, an echo of Highlife’s layered cadences and the improvisatory gestures of Ashanti Blues. Like the quiet eye of a storm, the painting centers a calm that is not emptiness, but equilibrium—a meditation on the persistence of memory, the pulse of cultural resonance, and the translation of sound into texture and color.
Acrylic and edible clay on canvas
100 x 100 cm
In Floating Sounds, Haizel orchestrates a composition of motion and rhythm. Vertical white tassels descend across the canvas, interacting with drips and patches of color scattered in concentrated bursts: ultramarine, cobalt, prussian blue, muted grays, soft peaches, and earthy browns. The palette shifts from light to dark and back again, creating a sense of turbulence and lift—like a musical phrase rising and falling, or Highlife’s layered cadences rendered in paint.
Threaded seams stretch across the canvas like scars or sutures; interrupted, unravelled, and left to fray. Tally marks and carefully folded canvas mark the passage of time and the labor of creation. Each tassel and thread counts like a note or beat, while clay-infused pigment settles into the canvas’ surface, recording both the movement of the artist’s hand and the rhythm of memory.
Like the other works in the Ashanti Blues series, Floating Sounds translates music into visual form: a choreography of color, texture, and gesture that evokes the improvisation, resonance, and floating energy of sound itself. The painting balances frenzy and control, capturing a suspended, musical energy that is both meditative and dynamic.
Acrylic and edible clay on canvas
100 x 100 cm
Random Notes immerses the viewer in a deep, oceanic rhythm. Vertical tassels, this time awash with the same layered pigments as the canvas itself, descend alongside tally marks, marking the passage of time and the meticulous labor of creation. The palette is rich and dark: layered blues, teals, and deep umbers flow across the surface like currents, punctuated by glimmers of ochre, rust, and white, evoking the shimmer of coral, flickers of light, or musical echoes beneath the waves.
Lines and circles drawn across the canvas resemble “random musical notes,” mapping a visual score of sound and memory. The central vertical element—a textured, rope-like tassel descending from the top—anchors the composition, suggesting connection and descent, a thread linking realms: sea to air, spirit to body, thought to matter.
Haizel’s process summons the subconscious, conjuring aesthetic habits from infantile spontaneity to learned academic choices, all while responding to the cultural landscape of urban life. As a metaphor, Random Notes aligns with the evolution of Ghanaian Highlife: the emergence of “Odonson” or Ashanti Blues in the 1930s, when the Fante osibisaaba was replaced by the guitar. Just as the sonic evolution represents tradition adapting, resisting, and enduring, the painting’s layered gestures and textured surfaces evoke improvisation, memory, and the resonance of sound made visual.
Acrylic and edible clay on canvas
70 x 70 cm
Deep Blues radiates a serene yet resonant energy, anchored in the cool, layered palette of dark teal, azure, and oxblood-tinged browns that characterize Haizel’s Ashanti Blues series. Horizontal fringes ripple across the lower portion of the canvas, their delicate movement suggesting both musical rhythm and the gentle flow of time.
Tally marks, carefully inscribed alongside threads, punctuate the composition like counted beats, tracing memory and the meticulous gestures of the artist’s hand. Shredded and folded canvas, layered with acrylic and edible clay, creates a tactile surface where texture and color converge, recording the passage of time and the echo of sound within material.
Through this interplay of gesture, material, and color, Deep Blues continues Haizel’s exploration of rhythm, improvisation, and cultural memory. The work evokes the layered resonance of Highlife music—the improvisatory shifts, the evolving traditions, and the enduring spirit of Ghanaian musical heritage—translating sonic energy into a visual experience that is at once meditative, textured, and alive.