Zohra often integrates family heirlooms, personal symbols, and elements from Ghana’s visual culture, such as references to West African brass-making traditions
2027 Biennial Year Find out more
Zohra Opoku’s practice often begins with photography. Images are screen-printed onto pre-dyed natural fabrics and transformed through hand-stitched embroidery and collage. These techniques, rooted in both traditional craftsmanship and experimental composition, form the foundation of her richly layered textile works.
Drawing from her own life and body, Opoku reflects on themes of belonging, memory, and representation. She often integrates family heirlooms, personal symbols, and elements from Ghana’s visual culture, such as references to West African brass-making traditions. The result is a body of work that is cathartic and resonant, anchored in lived experience yet capable of speaking to broader questions shared across the African diaspora and beyond.
Her work has been exhibited internationally, including in the 15th edition of Sharjah Biennale (2023); at the 14th edition of the Dak’art Biennial (2022) and at the 7th Athens Biennale (2021).
Opoku has had prominent solo exhibitions internationally, including The Harvest Season, Fondation Cartier, Paris (2026-27); We Proceed in the Footsteps of the Sunlight, Zeitz MOCAA, Cape Town (2025-26); and With Every Fiber of (My) Being, RAW Material Company, Dakar (2024). In 2027, she will open a solo exhibition at the SCHIRN Kunsthalle Frankfurt.
Her work is collected by public institutions including the Centre Pompidou (Paris), CCS Bard College Hessel Museum of Art (Annandale-on-Hudson), Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Los Angeles), and Tate Modern (London).
She is represented by Mariane Ibrahim (Chicago, Paris, Mexico City).
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Zohra Opoku, ’I proceed in the footsteps of the sunlight. (...)', 2022. Installation view at Sharjah Bienniale 15, 2023. Image courtesy of Sharjah Art Foundation. Photography by Shanavas Jamaluddin. -
Zohra Opoku, ‘Hail to you, lords of truth, (...)’, 2020. Courtesy of the artist and Mariane Ibrahim Gallery. Photography by Aurélian Mole -
Zohra Opoku, 'I am the terror in the storm who guards the great one [in] the conflict. Sharp Knife strikes for me. Ash god provides coolness for me.’, Part 2, 2024. Courtesy of the artist and Mariane Ibrahim. -
Zohra Opoku, 'To Me Belongs Yesterday(...).’, 2020. Image courtesy of the artist and Mariane Ibrahim Gallery. Photography by Aurélian Mole.
