daniel arnan quarshie (b. 1995, ghana) is a multidisciplinary artist living and working in kumasi, whose practice spans drawing, installation, sculpture, and sound. rooted in the expressive potential of charcoal, his work navigates the polarity between life and death — giving form to absence through memory, familial love, and the passage of time. his practice begins with the archive: family photographs, oral records, and object-based collections that serve as points of departure for broader inquiries into mortality, belonging, and the passage of time. influenced by the dramatic tenebrism of caravaggio and the monumental figuration of robert longo, he harnesses light and shadow to heighten emotional resonance. he holds a bfa and mfa with first class honours from knust, kumasi, and has exhibited internationally, including at documenta fifteen with blaxTARLINES kumasi, galerie hubert winter in vienna, migros museum in zurich, and the nairobi contemporary art institute.

during his residency at dot.ateliers, quarshie completed a trilogy of works functioning as contemporary memento mori — charcoal-led pieces that sit at the intersection of mortality, material excess, and ecological consequence. the works carry a subtle but deliberate commentary on textile waste and its environmental toll, embedding socio-political critique within the visual and symbolic language of death and remembrance that has long defined his practice. beyond the canvas, the residency opened new territory in installation, with quarshie exploring spatial and material possibilities that extended his practice into three dimensions. his open studio became a site of genuine exchange — audiences engaging directly with the works and the ideas animating them, testing how the pieces land beyond the studio walls.

being in accra — geographically and culturally proximate to the very conditions his work addresses — grounded the trilogy in a lived reality that sharpened both its urgency and its resonance. the distance between subject matter and lived experience collapsed, and the work was richer for it.