Digital artist Serwah Affafuah has been on a journey since she gave up oil painting due to poor ventilation in her parents’ garage in Western Sydney. It’s put her in contact with everyone from Paris Hilton to Genesis Owusu, and she’s found herself working with luxury brands the world over, with the latest being whisky titans Chivas Regal as an ambassador for their ‘How We Rise’ program.
Serwah, the child of a sculptor and graphic designer, is largely self-taught. Since transitioning into digital art, her star has exploded. She’s become known for her afrofuturistic, dreamy cyber works. Her most notable works to date include Apotheosis, presented in 2021 at the Sydney Opera House, which navigates nostalgia, futurism, and a melancholic swirl of color in one immersive hit. It evokes her upbringing in Western Sydney, touching on gentrification and urban sprawl, imbuing the digital landscape with a very human sense of heart. Another distinguished work is the NFT commissioned by Paris Hilton, Aether: Galaxy Goddess, which was sold at the prestigious auction house Sotheby’s.
Serwah's work isn't just confined to the visual—she's also a prolific musician. She fronts hardcore four-piece NASHO and hardstyle group MANA and plays guitar for death metal group DISPOSSESSED (with whom she scored a nomination in the 2019 Australian Music Prize). Currently, she's working out of the esteemed Parramatta Artists Studio and taking on projects with the Biennale of Sydney and Melbourne's ACMI.
But despite her larger-than-life accomplishments and artwork, Serwah is still proudly Western Sydney to her core. As she tells Complex AU, a short-lived stint in Sydney's inner west reaffirmed her preference for being close to family in her hometown.
As part of the Chivas Regal Pioneers Program, Serwah hosted an exclusive workshop in Melbourne to help some of the country's top young creatives follow in her footsteps and turn their passion into a living. Complex AU caught up with her at the event to talk about her TED talk, her favourite work to date, and Western Sydney's influence on her work.
In your TED talk, you spoke about making art and music, and how you initially felt that your music was political, but your art wasn’t. But then you came to this realisation, and the exact quote is: “Having to create a digital space to feel safe was an unintentional political statement in and of itself.” Can you speak a little bit more about that?
Digital art was sort of a sanctuary; it was something that I could keep private. It didn’t have to be shared—it wasn’t—unless I wanted it to be. Whereas painting, people would be in and out of my studio and be like, “What’s this? What’s that? What are you doing here?” You know?
During that transition period, going from painting to digital art, I founded DISPOSSESSED and was in a bunch of quite politically charged bands. Having politics in your art form is pretty great; it’s really moving, and I think it’s super important.
But having that sanctuary to, after a show, just go on the computer and make something in the Metaverse gave me a sense of peace. I distanced politics from digital art for a long time, but over time realised that having to have this digital safe space really spoke to the societal conditions I was living in as a woman—as a black woman—in this crazy world.
There's a lot of Western Sydney landscapes in your work, like in Apotheosis, which you did with the Sydney Opera House. What other ways does home show up in your work?
I’ve lived in Western Sydney since I was born—I still live in the same house in the same area. In terms of Western Sydney showing up in my work, it's not even something I've had to force. It was just what I've seen in my life, it’s just where I live. It’s my childhood; it’s nostalgic. Apotheosis is one of the best examples of that, especially in the first scene. Lydia’s on this train platform in the middle of nowhere, but there are also all these big skyscrapers in the background—that's a really typical Western Sydney experience.
Western Sydney is quite barren and suburban. But skyscrapers have started popping up over time, and there have been all these crazy developments. That’s what I was trying to pull apart visually in Apotheosis. A lot of my characters could live in Western Sydney. I feel like that piece is the Metaverse of Western Sydney.
What's your favourite piece of work to date?
Ooh. It’s hard because pretty much all of my pieces are favourites for different things, so it’s really hard to pick. It also changes. A lot of the time, I actually forget what I’ve done. Right now, I’m in the process of going back and archiving a lot of my work, and so often, I’m like, “I don’t remember doing this.”
I would say today, my favourite is the Consensual Hallucinations pieces. It’s the orange one, with the fish surrounding her face. I created it the day the world went into lockdown or a few days later. It just really captured my feelings at that time: everybody’s drowning, but it’s quite beautiful, the silence of slowing down.
Why is that your favourite one today?
I’m just really feeling the colours in that one today. Sometimes, the work isn’t that deep. A lot of the time, I’ll just switch off my mind for however long it takes me to do the piece, and I’ll be like, “I don’t know what this is, but I like the colours, and I feel good,” and then I start to extrapolate what that means.
At 25, you’ve achieved so much already. How have you managed to be so successful?
My main thing is that I’ve just said yes to everything over the years, unless it gave me a really bad gut feeling. Even with the band, somebody walked up to me on the street and asked, “Do you want to do vocals for a band?” I’d never done vocals before. I was like, 15. I said, “Okay, sure bro. Where’s practice?” Didn’t know him. And then, years later, I ended up being nominated for the Australian Music Prize. I just say yes a lot.
Solitude is very important, too. I wouldn’t be as successful if I didn’t really give time to my work. A lot of the time [with commissioned work], I haven’t even known if I could complete the job I’d said yes to, but I knew if I said yes, I would have somebody standing on my neck to make me complete the task. I’m entirely self-taught. My approach was, “Okay, I’m not going to go and learn how to animate unless somebody tells me I’ve got to animate and gives me a timeline.”
I also think experimentation has been essential for my success and that there’s a lot of beauty in experimenting. You try things. If you don’t like it, don’t do it. But just try different things, feel them out, observe. Experimenting is very important.
