Allanol Always: Anya Paintsil's Textural Homecoming
This summer, Welsh-Ghanaian textile artist Anya Paintsil returns to her hometown of Wrexham for Allanol Always, a groundbreaking solo exhibition at Tŷ Pawb Art Gallery running until 25 October 2025. The show represents both a homecoming and a bold artistic statement, as Paintsil develops an entirely experimental body of work that challenges the art world's problematic relationship with Black creativity.
The exhibition's Welsh title, meaning "outside" or "external," is deliberately provocative. Paintsil uses this concept to confront how African art has been positioned as "outsider art" within Western art history - an othering she directly challenges through her textile practice. The word also resonates with her personal experience of navigating identity as a woman of colour, even within her own hometown.
Anya Paintsil: The Aura on Her, 2025. Acrylic, wool, fabric, found denim, found leather, synthetic hair on poly-cotton.
Central to Paintsil's practice is the fusion of traditional craft techniques learned in her North Wales childhood - rug making, appliqué, and hand embroidery - with Afro hair styling methods to create bold, textural portraits. This unique approach draws from the Fante tradition of figurative textiles while incorporating visual languages rooted in Kongo masks, Aku'aba dolls, and Asafo flags. The result is work that deliberately refuses to root itself in the European Fine Art Canon, instead finding its foundation in traditional West African crafts and art.
Anya Paintsil: Freestanding sculptures, created in collaboration with her partner, weaver Steven William.
For Allanol Always, Paintsil is pushing her practice further, experimenting with innovative appliqué methods and textile assemblages using repurposed and waste fabrics. Most intriguingly, she's collaborating with her partner, weaver Steven William, on freestanding sculptures inspired by Welsh mythology. These abstract works explore themes of monstrous figuration and the grotesque, marking a significant evolution in her artistic journey.
Anya Paintsil: Allanol Always Install Image, Tŷ Pawb Gallery, Wales. Photo Credit: Harry Meadley
The exhibition tackles a crucial disparity in how art is received and interpreted. While white artists are often celebrated for drawing inspiration from African art - romanticised as "tribal" or "primitive" - Black artists referencing these same traditions risk being misinterpreted as engaging in self-caricature or satire, reinforcing harmful stereotypes. Through Allanol Always, Paintsil advocates for a broader, more inclusive understanding of Black art beyond Eurocentric paradigms.
Paintsil's work interrogates gendered labour, particularly that of working-class women, by exchanging the hard materials of traditional African sculptures and masks for soft textiles. This material shift speaks to both the politics of craft hierarchies and the lived experiences of the communities that shaped her artistic vision.
Anya Paintsil: Allanol Always Install Image, Tŷ Pawb Gallery, Wales. Photo Credit: Harry Meadley
Curated in collaboration with Lewis Dalton Gilbert, the exhibition invites viewers to engage with Black figuration on new terms, exploring creativity and creative license beyond restrictive expectations. As Paintsil permanently returns to Wales, Allanol Always offers a powerful meditation on heritage, representation, and the complex negotiations of artistic identity in contemporary culture.
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Further Information:
Allanol Always by Welsh-Ghanaian artist Anya Paintsil is on now at the Tŷ Pawb Art Gallery until to November 2025.
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Image Credits: Anya Paintsil, Except Now I'm Drinking £21.99 Tokaji From Waitrose, 2023
All other images as credited in photo captions.