Welcome to Passion & Adinkra !

      Hi, I am Ornella                                                     

This website is the result of combining two of my hobbies. I name painting (which I self-teach) and the studying of Adinkra symbols created by the Akan people of Ghana (West Africa). I have enjoyed drawing since I was a little girl. Like most children I would draw houses, cars, sunny landscapes, etc… As I grew up I started drawing my favorite cartoon characters that I would see on my album stickers and various books.

During my teenage years I just completely stopped drawing until almost the end of high school when my Italian teacher convinced me to get back to it. « You should never have stopped drawing. A passion is a gift. Never allow anything or anyone to come between you and your passion ». I will never forget this woman for delivering this message to me…

My story with Adinkra started on a beautiful day of August 2010 as I was walking in Lomé’s Great Market in Togo. I was looking for souvenirs to buy before going back to France.

Two vendors drew my attention with a necklace. One of them told me it was very important that I purchase it. It was a necklace of black and brown pearls with a white pendent. When I asked what it was, he replied « this is Gye Nyame. It is a symbol from Ghana. It means that there is only one God and He is the greatest !». I still recall this guy pointing his index finger to the sky as he was talking to me.

So I bought the necklace, grateful to this young man who was much more than a vendor on that day. He was a true messenger... Yes, one more messenger !

The four years that followed earned me more life experiences, inspiration and a desire to express myself through art. That is when I stopped reproducing and started creating while making sure I included this symbol. Then I moved to painting.

I was soon to find out that Gye Nyame was actually part of a whole system of symbols called Adinkra. All of them have signification and carry a message of wisdom. I was so fascinated that I decided to study these scriptures and that brought me more inspiration. My goal was now to use them along with Gye Nyame in all my works in order to tell stories carrying messages of positiveness… Things had finally come into place.

This resulted in a series of paintings based on four themes : romance, transmission (mainly through education), love of self (through self care and assertiveness) and last but not least, incarnation (of moral value and principles).

Passion & Adinkra is therefore open to all, regardless of gender (eventhough I mainly represent women), regardless of skin color (eventhough the characters are Black), and regardless of beliefs.

The reason why I created Passion & Adinkra is to offer people the opportunity to discover and understand the messages of kindness, hope, and happiness carried by my works. Each painting comes with two different texts. One is lyric (meant to create a further connection between the characters and the beholder) while the other one is a description with explanation of each symbol. I wrote them all myself (except for one of the lyric texts 😉) in both French and English.

The website will also allow you to follow my drawing and painting improvement. This is the right moment to also specify that I work on 50x65 cm paper and use acrylic paint. I keep learning and I enjoy this a lot. Passion keeps you alive so you have to maintain it and never allow anything or anyone to take it away from you.

Adinkra is made of many symbols. I intend and hope to add more paintings to this website, on a regular basis.

                                                                           In the meantime, ENJOY !

                                                                                                        Ornella