The Woman Bathing

In this diptych, the figures, immersed in paradisiacal idleness, seem suspended in time and indifferent to one another. Their half nudity and surreal colors evoke a mythical, primordial universe, while the couple and the reclining woman seem to float above the ground and water.

Appah juxtaposes very flat surfaces and thick impasto, making the canvas a space that is both tactile and optical. His references range from Cézanne's Baigneuses to Matisse's golden age scenes, while the laying figure evokes a long tradition, from Velázquez to Ingres.

Yet his works are inspired by very real sources: archives, photographs, and home movies, or landscapes he takes himself, often linked to iconography of Ghana's independence in 1957. These images, first assembled in collages, are reinterpreted on canvas as dreamlike scenes, whose titles reveal the artist's inner world.

These works are held by the Pinault Collection and were presented for the first time at the "Corps et âmes" exhibition at the Bourse de Commerce in 2025.