Reflections
3ft × 3ft · Acrylics on canvas · May 2025
This piece explores the weight of choices and how we often overlook the answers already within our reach.
Tabi Crentsil
Works
Selected paintings and ongoing series exploring figuration, memory, symbolism, and contemporary African experience.
Series
The Silent Beat
In this series, I explore a more stylized and symbolic form of figuration. The figures are rendered in soft shades of ash and positioned with elongated proportions, sometimes extending beyond the edge of the canvas. That choice breaks the frame intentionally, suggesting spirit, presence, and continuity beyond the visible space. The muted palette contrasts with bursts of colour, revealing emotion through posture rather than detail. Like the first segment, these works affirm my place as a figurative painter; one who studies the human form not for likeness, but for what it communicates in silence and gesture.
Red Ball
3ft × 3ft · Acrylics on canvas · May 2024
Set against a golden backdrop that suggests wealth and ambition, the subject embodies focus and determination in the face of challenge.
Shaded Thought
3ft × 3ft · Acrylics on canvas · June 2024
The blue flower becomes a symbol of calm elegance, echoing the subject's poise and quiet strength.
Business Executive
3ft × 3ft · Acrylics on canvas · May 2024
The apples represent abundance, while the empty buckets suggest readiness. Her glance over the shoulder conveys vigilance and awareness of her environment.
Beyond
3ft × 3ft · Acrylics on canvas · June 2024
Serving the cube game on a plate reflects the interplay of intellect and choice, hinting at how we navigate complexity in pursuit of meaning.
A Piece of Me
4ft × 4ft · Acrylics on canvas · October 2024
Rooted in tradition, the earthenware symbolizes life itself. The mother's gesture of offering a piece to each one speaks of continuity and shared existence.
Seen Sound
3ft × 3ft · Acrylics on canvas · October 2024
Here, rhythm, energy, and emotion take visual form. The painting asks how sound might be seen rather than heard.
Mindset
3ft × 3ft · Acrylics on canvas · February 2025
The painting captures the tension between tradition and change. In a familiar setting, an unexpected situation unfolds, unsettling yet intriguing, as it challenges what we usually associate with such spaces.
Anticipate
3ft × 3ft · Acrylics on canvas · November 2024
Bathed in warm orange tones that evoke energy and enthusiasm, he sits at ease, absorbed in a moment of leisure and expectancy.
Chief Executive
3ft × 3ft · Acrylics on canvas · January 2025
Though she stands alone, unseen connections link her to suppliers and customers alike. She commands the flow of trade, embodying quiet authority.
Series
CONVERSATIONS IN MOTION
This series captures the pulse of human connection through layered colour and movement. Figures appear and dissolve within textured backgrounds, their gestures revealing a rhythm of conversation and daily life. The scenes are expressive rather than literal, where light, form, and motion blend to reflect shared energy and memory. This body of work reflects my approach as a figurative painter; one drawn to the emotion and flow that exists within human interaction.
Tomorrow Walks With Us
4ft × 4ft · Acrylics on canvas · July 2025
Three children move forward together, their earthy tones touched with light, carrying shared intent, quiet resilience and the promise of what lies ahead.
Regardless
3ft × 3ft · Acrylics on canvas · August 2025
A woman stands in quiet focus, serving with calm strength. The piece reflects resilience, dignity, and the quiet endurance found in everyday acts of care.
Flower Boy
3ft × 3ft · Acrylics on canvas · May 2025
A quiet child offers a flower in a bowl, a tender act balancing innocence and ceremony, stillness and quiet emotion.
Unwavering
3ft × 3ft · Acrylics on canvas · August 2025
This piece reflects the constant need to rise and meet unending demands of life. Regardless of one's place, perseverance remains essential to achieving purpose.
Traditions not Diminishing
4ft × 4ft · Acrylics on canvas · August 2025
This painting is about how heritage refuses to fade. Even when times change, traditions adapt, survive, and remain with us.
Varied Intentions
4ft × 4ft · Acrylics on canvas · August 2025
This piece explores the layers within human purpose. It reflects how motives intersect and diverge, revealing harmony, conflict, and unseen emotions shaping our choices and connections.
Carriers of Time
4ft × 4ft · Acrylics on canvas · May 2025
These women appear to face each other yet on different planes. In between them is a vessel embodying matrilineal knowledge, memory, and the enduring bridge between past and present.
Vessels of Hope
4ft × 4ft · Acrylics on canvas · May 2025
Two women in similar conditions stride in entirely different directions, each balancing vessels that evoke community, labour, and the shared resilience carried through generations.
Mama's Teacup
3ft × 3ft · Acrylics on canvas · August 2025
Mama's Teacup reflects quiet memory and inherited warmth. It speaks of love preserved in small rituals, where absence becomes presence and ordinary moments hold the weight of connection and belonging.
Between Sips and Silence
3ft × 3ft · Acrylics on canvas · May 2025
A seated figure with coffee reflects on stillness and warmth, where thought and memory steep gently like the drink.