Kojo Marfo

Kojo Marfo, also referred to in some sources as Kwadwo "Kojo" Marfo, was born in 1980 in Ghana; one source places his birthplace specifically at Kwahu Tafo. He grew up first in Kwahu and then in Accra before moving to the United States as a young man, settling in Brooklyn, New York. He enrolled in art courses at the University of Ghana and later at New York University, and worked briefly as a butcher, but left both without completing a degree. In the early 2000s he moved to London and enrolled in art and textile courses at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London, again leaving before finishing formal study. He describes himself as self-taught and has said that a classical art education was not for him.

For roughly two decades Marfo developed his practice independently while based in London. His breakthrough came in 2020, when he won an open-call exhibition, Isolation Mastered, staged by JD Malat Gallery in Mayfair; gallery owner Jean-David Malat subsequently began representing him. His first UK solo exhibition, Dreaming of Identity, opened at JD Malat Gallery, London, in 2021 and was reported as a sell-out show. Further solo exhibitions followed in New York (2022), London (2023), Baku and Istanbul (2024), and Dubai (2025). As of mid-2026 he is living and working, based in London.

Coverage of Marfo has so far come mainly from gallery materials, art-market press, and feature interviews rather than a sustained body of independent critical writing, and no exact, attributable critic quotation about his work in a major outlet could be confirmed for this profile. The consistent thread across BBC, Artnet, and Evening Standard coverage is the speed of his trajectory, from an outsider artist and former butcher to a gallery-backed painter with sold-out London shows and an international retrospective within a few years. Commentators have focused on his use of Akan fertility-doll forms and Cubist-influenced composition to address spirituality, injustice, and womanhood, and on the hybrid identity his work stages between Ghana and London.

Marfo's market to date is a primary market, built almost entirely through JD Malat Gallery, which represents him in London, New York, and Dubai, with DG Art Gallery and Project in Istanbul as an exhibiting partner. His paintings have sold out at gallery openings, and his profile has grown quickly through the 2024 Crucible of Hope retrospective at the Heydar Aliyev Centre in Baku and a 2025 solo debut in Dubai. His work appeared in Christie's 2021 benefit sale Say It Loud: Visionaries of Self in New York, where the painting Stranger #10 was cited among the sale's top results; a secondary compiled auction-price list attributes a USD 90,000 result to that work on 19 August 2021, but Christie's own materials do not themselves publish the exact price, so this figure should be treated as unconfirmed rather than a verified auction record. No museum permanent-collection acquisitions of his work have been confirmed in public sources.

Marfo's market is young, gallery-driven, and thin on independently verifiable auction data as of this writing. There is no catalogue raisonne, and works are best verified through JD Malat Gallery. A widely cited secondary source puts his highest known auction result at USD 90,000 for Stranger #10 at Christie's New York in 2021, but that figure has not been confirmed against a primary auction-house database, so it should be treated as indicative rather than a verified record. No museum permanent-collection acquisitions have been confirmed in public sources, so any pricing or acquisition claims collectors encounter should be checked against a documented public sale or collection record.