Samuel “Olou” Komlan
was born in Togo, adopted in Ghana, and now lives in Norway.
He is a mixed artist, organizer of artistic events, founder and artistic director of “Art in Aktion”, initiator of Kamina Artist and Researcher’s Platform (KARP) in Togo, member and director of the Contemporary Art and Culture (CACP) platform in Norway, founding member of the Foundation for Contemporary Art in Ghana and former board member of Alliance Française (French Cultural Centre) Tema, Ghana.
In addition to his art projects, he organized several art and educational events locally and abroad. He initiated and co-organized with Professor Ole Lislerud (National Academy of Art in Oslo), the project “The North meets the West” consisting in creating an artistic platform for meetings for education and dialogue between the Scandinavian countries and the African continent. The 2010 project resulted in an exchange between eleven (11) artists from Norway, Denmark, Mali, Togo, Burkina Faso and Ghana at the National Museum of Mali. A year earlier, in 2009, in collaboration with the Goethe-Institute in Ghana and the Thamgidi Foundation in the Netherlands, he organized the second international symposium of female artists, which was attended by fifteen (15) female artists from Africa and Europe.
Over the years, he has collaborated with cultural institutions, academies and universities in Africa, Europe and America, in particular with New York University (NYU) in the USA or with the University of Ghana.
As an artist, he received several scholarships and awards, for example, an annual research and residency grant for artists in 2008-09 from the city of Skien, Norway, a residency program for a research and development project at BAC “Baltic Art Center”, Visby, Sweden, and a work grant from the Ingrid Lindbäck Langaards Foundation, both in 2011.
He exhibited locally in Ghana, Togo, other African countries and on international stages. In 2004, he had the pleasure of participating in the “Open Asia” exhibition in Venice, where he exhibited the work “The Beatles” next to YOKO ONO. He had the opportunity to publicly present the project of an outdoor sculpture with dimensions of 400 x 300 cm, mounted. He has exhibited at the World Bank in Washington, New York, Norman Gallery in Ireland, Australia, Italy and Norway. One of his recent works, International Observers, is on display at the new national museum in Oslo, Norway.
He successfully organized six editions of KARP residencies, in which many artists from all over the world took part, sharing their experiences in the historical place of Kamina, Togo. As initiator of KARP (Togo) and director of CACP (Norway), he works with the leadership of both associations to build the Kamina Cultural Center and Gallery, which aims to bring artists and researchers together and promote development and friendship between Africa and Europe.