David Obeng Adane (b. 1992)

Ɔdehyeɛ Kukuo (“Royal Vessel”)

2025

Stoneware, hand-carved

H 40 × W 36 cm

Ɔdehyeɛ Kukuo belongs to Adane’s In My Family House series, which takes its forms from the large household pots that were central to domestic life in pre-colonial Akan homes. The title translates from Twi as “royal vessel”: Ɔdehyeɛ, meaning royal or noble person, Kukuo meaning pot. These were not ordinary storage forms; they held a specific status within the household, and the name reflects that.

The vessel is broad and rounded, built at a scale that references the original domestic pots it descends from. The surface is densely carved with geometric bands and Adinkra-derived motifs, organised in a grid-like structure across the body rather than the flowing diagonal compositions found in the Kwankyen Ade series. The carving here is more architectural, more contained.

The layered patina recalls the grain of Odum, one of Ghana’s most valued hardwoods, blurring the line between ceramic surface and carved timber. Where the Kwankyen Ade pieces read as vessels first, Ɔdehyeɛ Kukuo reads as an object of weight and standing, closer in feeling to a ceremonial form than a domestic one.

“My concept of art is to share a message, unabashed and unafraid — a message shaped by personal experience, ancestral wisdom, sociocultural reflection and spiritual understanding.”

— David Obeng Adane