Artist from Ghana
El-ham Tabsoba is a Ghanaian mixed media artist whose work is rooted in personal experience and emotional storytelling. Working with oil on canvas and recycled shredded plastics, she creates layered portraits that reflect vulnerability, resilience, and the quiet act of becoming. Her practice is informed by lived realities, memory, and the body as a site of endurance and transformation. The use of discarded plastic in her work holds deep significance, speaking to both environmental neglect and the ways certain lives and stories are often overlooked. Through texture, gesture, and introspective figures, El-ham invites viewers into intimate moments of reflection, asking them to sit with discomfort, empathy, and care. Her work seeks to create space for honest dialogue, centering authenticity as a form of resistance and connection.
CRITICAL REVIEW: The selected artwork “Over and Beyond” explores the idea of the threshold as a space of transformation. The blue-toned figure transcends fixed identities, while the textured surface — enriched with recycled materials — turns fragility into visual strength. The work invites viewers to move beyond appearances and embrace resilience as a quiet, generative force.
In “Looking Through You”, the gaze becomes an act of connection. Identity is revealed as depth rather than surface, dissolving boundaries between self and other. The work affirms vulnerability as authenticity, encouraging empathy and shared human experience.- Dr. Carmela Loiacono, Art Curator
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INTERVIEW with El-ham Tabsoba
Carmela Loiacono talks with El-ham Tabsoba who took part in the International Art Exhibition NEW HORIZONS – Authenticity, Resilience and Renewal in Matera, at Casa Cava, from March 21 to 27, 2026.
Carmela Loiacono – In works like Over and Beyond and Looking Through You, you transform materials such as shredded recycled plastic into layered textures that convey resilience and identity. How does the tactile process of creating these surfaces shape the way you perceive vulnerability, strength, and transformation in your subjects?
El-ham Tabsoba – The tactile process is very central to how I think through the work. When I apply shredded plastic into the painted surface, I am not just building texture, I am working through resistance. The material does not behave like paint. It resists, overlaps, and sometimes disrupts the image.
That process mirrors how I understand vulnerability and strength. Vulnerability is not smooth or controlled. It is layered, unpredictable, and sometimes uncomfortable. Strength, in my work, is not the absence of that fragility, but the ability to hold it together over time.
Transformation happens in that tension. A material that was once discarded begins to carry meaning. In the same way, the figures I paint hold emotional weight that is not always visible at first glance, but becomes present through the surface.
Carmela Loiacono – Your use of blue skin tones removes conventional markers of race and nationality, emphasizing a shared human experience. How do you approach the balance between individuality and universality in your portraits, especially in relation to the neurodiverse patterns that inspire your creative process?
El-ham Tabsoba – Using blue allows me to step away from fixed ideas of identity. It removes immediate assumptions about race or nationality, which creates space for a more open emotional reading of the work.
At the same time, each figure still carries something very personal. I think of them as individuals first, but individuals that exist within shared emotional experiences. The balance comes from allowing specific gestures, expressions, and body language to remain intact, while the colour shifts how we interpret them.
The patterns and structures in my work are influenced by how I perceive complexity and repetition. They are not meant to define the figure, but to exist alongside it, almost like an internal rhythm. This is where individuality and universality meet, in something that feels both deeply personal and widely relatable.
Carmela Loiacono – Environmental consciousness and sustainability are central to your practice, as you repurpose discarded plastic into meaningful textures. How does this dialogue with materials mirror the themes of resilience and renewal that run through your work?
El-ham Tabsoba – Working with discarded plastic is both a practical and conceptual decision. I collect these materials from everyday environments, places where they are often overlooked or treated as waste.
By bringing them into the work, I am not trying to hide their origin. Instead, I want them to remain visible, to carry their history into the painting. This act of repurposing mirrors the themes of resilience and renewal that run through my work.
Just as the material is given a second life, the figures I paint often exist in a space of becoming. They are not fixed. They are layered, evolving, and shaped by what they carry. The material and the subject begin to reflect each other.
Carmela Loiacono – Looking forward, how do you envision expanding your exploration of identity, memory, and texture in future projects? Are there new mediums, techniques, or concepts you are eager to experiment with?
El-ham Tabsoba – Moving forward, I am interested in expanding the relationship between material and space. I want to explore how these textures can move beyond the canvas, possibly into more immersive or sculptural forms.
I am also curious about deepening the idea of memory within the work, how surfaces can hold traces of time, not just visually but physically. This may involve experimenting with new materials or combining different techniques while still staying rooted in painting.
At the core, I want to continue exploring how identity is shaped, not as something fixed, but as something layered, shifting, and continuously unfolding.
