Ataa Oko
Ataa Oko (* about 1919 in La, Ghana) is a Ghanaian coffin artist.
Biography
Ataa Oko was born around 1919 in the coastal town of La, Ghana. He never went to school, but worked since he was about 13 years old as a fisherman. Later his family sent him on the cocoa plantations in the Ashante Region. From 1936 to 1939 he was trained as a carpenter in Accra. 1939 to 1970 he worked in numerous temporary employments. Around 1945 he started to build his first figurative coffins. After only a few years, he became known throughout the entire coastal region for his innovative coffins, so that in 1951 he finally opened his his own coffin workshop in La. These days Ataa Oko is retired and hardly builds coffins any more, but since 2005 he became a painter in collaboration with Regula Tschumi. Ataa Okos coffins and drawings were first exhibited in the group show "Six Feet Under" at the Kunstmuseum Berne 2006 and 2010/11 in his first one man show in the Collection de l'Art Brut
Exhibitions
Media
Film, Video
References
External links
Retrieved from : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ataa_Oko
