Luck is Coming to You (2025) by Courage Hunke

Courage Hunke (b. 2000, Accra, Ghana) is a multidisciplinary artist exploring the city as a living archive. Using photography, drawing, screen printing, and found materials like discarded plastic and posters, he transforms everyday urban detritus into artworks that reveal hidden histories and communities.

"I started making this piece when I was in Dot.Atelier (Amoako Boafo’s foundation, Ed. note) last year, during a residency. I began by drawing a lot, and I also started collecting what the city was giving me: images from billboards, and fragments of text from posters and advertisements. One phrase stayed with me and ended up structuring the whole work: “Start strong, finish strong”. It was part of a Nescafé advertisement painted on a building right next to my studio. At first, it just felt like background noise in the street. But the more I saw it, the more it started to echo my experience of arriving at the residency with a very enthusiastic, forward-looking energy, and then leaving with the feeling that I had actually done what I came for. That sentence captured something simple and powerful: coming in with intention, and walking out feeling fulfilled. So I began to collect images that could hold that same emotional range. There are moments of joy, of lightness. And there are also documents of movement and time. In the work, I included a map of Osu and Labone (two famous district of Accra, Ed. note), tracing my own path: from the studio to the apartment, and to the places I kept visiting while I was there.I created this piece using a material I’ve been exploring for some time, which I call “sandwiches.” Much like an actual sandwich, it involves layering materials—plastic and paper—allowing each surface to retain traces of its past: packaging, printed textures, and fragments of text. These marks are not decorative; they reflect the city imprinting itself onto the work.

Many of these materials come from public walls—posters meant to disappear. I collect obituary and religious notices, among other vernacular postings, viewing the city as an archive. These ephemeral objects reveal stories of identity, memory, and community.

A recurring element in my work is a red dot. Working mostly in monochrome draws attention to texture and composition, leaving nothing hidden. The red dot acts as a focal point: it's an invitation into the work, and it has become a subtle signature, marking presence rather than defining meaning.

In Luck is Coming to You, these ideas converge: the city as archive, the residency as a journey, and the sense of leaving with the feeling of having started strong and finished strong." Interview conducted on March 20, 2026, at the Artemartis studio in Accra.