Isaac Yeboah is a Ghanaian artist based in Hull, who works primarily in drawing and ceramics. He is led by the guiding principle that art can facilitate the acquisition of knowledge, and believes that truth lies in our songs, myths and stories. His work speaks to deep, ancestral, Ghanaian knowledge and traditions and transforms the acquired information into vivid abstract imagery, rich in detail and meaning. 

For Daylight Comes Through the Cracks, Yeboah invites us to experience the detailed tapestry of Ghanian folklore, which is often communicated verbally between generations. The large ceramic vessel at the centre of the exhibition represents a wise elder, who is addressing a group of seven children. In Ghana children are named after the day of the week that they were born on, and by having each day represented here by a small pot, Yeboah ensures that everyone has a place at this gathering. The narrative conveyed by the elder can be seen in the largest drawing on the wall, whereas the smaller drawings represent digressions from the main story as the children interrupt the flow to add their own perspectives, and the elder responds with other tangential tales, advice or moral lessons. These narratives can be heard in Twi, the most widely spoken language in Ghana, through the music of Pure Akan and Agya Koo Nimo. 

The title of the exhibition is borrowed from Toni Morrison’s 1987 novel Beloved, in which she references the treacherous journey that enslaved Africans were forced to take across the Atlantic Ocean in the cargo holds of ships. Dark and dehumanising, the only light that penetrated these holds came through the cracks in the wooden structure of the ship. Yeboah applies this metaphor to his own upbringing in West Africa, in which he had to piece together history and life lessons to form his own understanding of the world, strands of clarity guiding him through the dark unknown. Here, Yeboah documents these personal and universal learnings through intricate drawings on paper, canvas and clay, surfaces that for him represent the remnants of history.