
Lanto Azasime´s art shows the hidden beauty in discarded eggshells and shows the life journey that the shells and materials have undergone before their destination. His art explores themes across transitions, time, values and social issues in Africa. Lanto is preoccupied with contributing to solving Ghana's sanitation problems, and he does so by collecting discarded eggshells and turn them into works of art that tell African history in the African way.
Lanto Azasime is a young Ghanaian artist, born 28.10. 1995 in Accra. He lives and works in Takoradi, where he currently holds a bachelor's degree in technology at Takoradi Technical University.
Lantos interest in art started at an early age at 5, when he began drawing. He started at the Anchor of Hope school in Accra in kindergarten at the age of just 2 years. From there, he continued to Junior High School at East Legon Academy in Accra. He later studied Visual Art at Sogakofe Senior High School and was finally admitted to Takoradi Technical University in 2015, where he attended Commercial Art. He also followed a trained artist for 5 months. After graduating with a diploma from Commercial Art, Lanto worked as a teaching assistant at the Department of Industrial Painting and Design in Takoradi.
Lantos artistic practice ranges from painting to recycled art. His paintings are mostly acrylic on canvas and most often abstract compositions. In the latest works, Lanto has become very preoccupied with using eggshells as a means of expression. He says his fascination with eggshells is related to his childhood, when his mother sold eggs on the market, and he was the one to buy the eggs from the egg merchants.
Lanto is preoccupied with contributing to solving Ghana's sanitation problems, and he does so by collecting discarded eggshells to turn them into works of art.
He believes that the eggshell after it is formed, is a treasure for the hen, and a protector of life. He has therefore studied about eggs and has come to the idea, that until the eggshell is broken, its content cannot be enjoyed – and this also applies to humans. He believes that until a person's life is broken at some point in life, he cannot be introduced to new life. Lanto believes in the Egyptian philosophy that there is an afterlife, and that out of the broken, a new life arises. That's why he wants to create new life and value out of the discarded eggshells he finds around in the environment.
The working method is this: he collects, washes and preserves the eggshells and combines them with other materials such as charcoal, wire, acrylic paint and glue – depending about his motif. His art shows the hidden beauty into discarded eggshells and reveals the life journey that the shells and materials have undergone before their destination.
His art explores themes across transition, time, values and social issues in Africa. His inspiration comes from God, his mother Agnes Azasime, the eggshells, and the American artist Jackson Pollock.
He has exhibited at Paint sculpt Art in 2018, has been involved in street art painting, at exhibitions at the Faculty of Applied Art and Technology and exhibited at the inauguration of the Art Gallery House – all in Takoradi.