Tapp’s Art Center is thrilled to announce its next exhibition, BA AKHU: A New Vision featuring the spiritual mindscapes of Baba Seitu Amenwahsu. BA AKHU: A New Vision will be on view at the Tapp’s Art Center from May 3, 2018 through June 1, 2018, with an opening reception May 3 from 6pm to 9pm featuring live performances by Spiritual Gumbo African Drumming Group and a ritual installment performed by Baba Seitu.

Baba Seitu Amenwahsu is a BA AKHU Mystic (Baba), visual artist, spiritual/holistic healer and International Representative of BA AKHU MYSTICAL HEALING MOVEMENT, an Autonomous and Independent Spiritual Institution in Columbia, South Carolina. He is a versatile artist and educator who utilizes a range of spiritual healing methods, i.e., Reiki, sound, color, dowsing/radiesthesia, reflexology/color zone therapy, meditation, dream work, chakra work, and visual art.

Baba Seitu Amenwahsu’s artwork represents a visual interpretation of the spiritual path he calls,  BA AKHU, (Soul of Light). By translating meditative, transformative and evolutionary modalities through visual aesthetics, he creates paintings and installations that promote spiritual healing.

The prophetic message intended in his work speaks to his belief in the liberation and restoration of African people to their rightful place as the parents of world civilization and that the Afrikan human being is a divinity by nature. His paintings reflect humanity’s journey to realize and awaken to a state of awareness and being-ness that is ongoing and evolutionary.

His work is polyrhythmic, multi-colored, multi-patterned with multi-dimensional layers of human figures, African symbols and geometric shapes. The spiritual writing symbols in his work, called, ‘Blue Sperit Mumblins’, are the written expression of chants and mantras that where channeled through him by the spirit of God and his African Ancestors.  As founder of the tradition of BA AKHU and its visual art aesthetic, ‘Ba Akhu Hemut’, he uses these visual icons along with a patterned aesthetic to create a multi-sensory experience. Stimulating vibrational and rhythmic sensations in the eye of the viewer the paintings translate as moving objects- visual symphonies. This process was developed through his need to feed his own spiritual and emotional awareness in music and share his own synesthetic experiences. Baba Seitu Amenwahsu sees, hears and feels color, rhythm, pattern, texture, lines, symbols and shapes in his subconscious mind and spirit.

It is the goal of his work to introduce ‘Ba Akhu; A New Vision’ to the world and help develop and bring the image of the subconscious into the conscious, unveiling the true nature of the divinity within and to share that vision with humanity. He creates these works to reflect the creative aspects and cosmic processes through which God created the universe.  The spiritual figures and beings of light in his work portray the process, through which God created the universe, was, and is, creatively spontaneous, evolutionary, changeable, transformative, transfigured, transmuted, forever-planned, improvisational, rhythmically innovative and forever happening.

Human figures are almost always an important feature in his work. The figures in his art are overlaid  with the rhythmic patterns, lines, shapes, and colors to express the energetic principles reflecting the life-giving spiritual force or Holy Spirit. The works resonate values that will ultimately help to move Afrikan people and humanity itself to the next logical stage of evolution which is to become Soul Beings of Light, BA AKHU!

His formal education includes Columbia area schools, Howard University; Master Of Fine Arts (M.F.A.) Art Studio Painting, 1994 – 1996., Benedict College; Art Education Teacher Certification K-12, 1986 – 1987,

University Of South Carolina; Art Studio Painting, 1981 – 1984, and Spartanburg Methodist College; Liberal Arts, 1979-1981. He is a self-taught musician, singer, composer, Afrikan drummer, jazz vocalist, and flutist, and instrument maker.

He has 40+ years as a visual artist and participated in many visual art exhibitions mainly in the southeastern region of the United States, 30 years in public school education, K-5 in South Carolina public schools and has taught college level courses at Allen University and at Howard University.

He is a retiring art teacher from Richland School District One at the end of the 2018 school year.

Baba Seitu Amenwahsu is married to Sufia Giza Amenwahsu, an Ancestrally inspired artist, Reggae Dub-Poetess, Ethno-Botanical Historian, Documentarian and Film-Maker and they live and work in Columbia, South Carolina. 

 

 

Artist Bio: 

• Gender; Male
• Born:  Columbia, S.C.
• Age; 56  September 5, 1961 Columbia, S.C. USA
• Relationship; Married to Sufia Giza Amenwahsu; Reggae Dub Poetess, Historian, Etho-Botanist and Film-maker.

Introduction

• Ba Akhu Mystic, Priest, Holistic Health Consultant, Reiki Master, Visual Artist, Musician,            Art Educator African Drummer, Jazz Musician, Singer, Flutist, etc…
• Founder of BA AKHU Mystical Healing Movement,
• Creator of 3 Divine Keys Of  BA AKHU Spiritual Development,/Attunements
• Conduit and Channeler of Blue Sperit Mumblins (Mantras/Chants/Words of Power)
• Founder of Ba Akhu Hemut; Kosmocentric / Pan Afrikan Visual Art Design Aesthetic.

Bragging rights

• Practicing visual artist for over 40 years and public school teacher for 28 years.
• Retiring Public School Art Educator (2018)

Work

• Occupation; Ba Akhu Mystic
• Retiring Public school educator in visual arts.
• Present Employment; Richland School District One (RETIRING)

Education

• Howard University; Master Of Fine Arts (M.F.A.) Art Studio Painting, 1994 – 1996.
• Benedict College; Art Education Teacher Certification K-12, 1986 – 1987
• University Of South Carolina; Art Studio Painting, 1981 – 1984
• Spartanburg Methodist College; Liberal Arts, 1979Nation and South

Organizations

• National Art Education Association
• South Carolina Art Education Association
• South Carolina Education Association
• Association for the Study of Classical African Civilizations

BA AKHU HEMUT      

(Artistic Philosophy)

Ba Akhu Hemut is the visual arts aesthetic of the Ba Akhu Mystical Healing Movement.

It has evolved after 30 years of research based primarily on a Kosmocentric/Pan Afrikan visual arts aesthetic created by its founder Baba Seitu Amenwahsu.

BA AKHU ART is based on the Kosmology of the Ba Akhu Mystical Healing Movement.

This Kosmology reflects a primordial African based spiritual system which is expansive enough to include all arts from world perspectives.

Formally, the design aesthetic that BA AKHU Mystics now use was called Ka.t Em Akhu Hemut or spirit works of the ancestral craft persons. Since this design aesthetic has been under-going so many transformations as it should, this design aesthetic has become Kosmocentric and inclusive of all the worlds spiritual traditions without losing its parental Pan African base in its construction. All of the world’s cultural expressions, styles, iconography can and do enhance the overall flavor of this design aesthetic. It is both Kosmocentric, Afrikan Centered and Multi-ethnocentric which means it encompasses all the world’s cultural expressions around a central core of Afrikan spiritual, creative and aesthetic values.

Therefore the name Ba Akhu Hemut or ‘soul of light’ of the ancestral craft persons/messengers of light’ became the more appropriate designation.

This design aesthetic specifically illustrates a Kosmological Healing of the Pan African Visual Arts Aesthetic.

This healing is for the purpose of recreating and restoring a collective visual arts aesthetic for a people stripped of their indigenous spiritual ideology and practice of art. This offering addresses a need for Africans in the West to have their own visual arts tradition.

The Cosmic Principalities of the Ba Akhu Hemut Design Aesthetic are called,

Utchat Em Kheperu.

These are the Principalities, Powers, Pillars and Criteria of Creation/creativity and Principalities of Enlightenment.

These cosmic principles form the basis of the BA AKHU Kosmology which serve as the under-girding criteria of all Ba Akhu creative works and as a human way of life. These are the 7 aspects, forces, powers and principalities and energies through which God created all things according to Ba Akhu Kosmology.

1. QET: the Principality of Afrikan cultural artistic foundation, base desires and structural grounding aspect of living TRUTH.
2. PERUHAT: the Principality of purging the emanating feeling tone, emotions and spiritual life force through which the artist works and the art form that begins in the heart and mind towards the establishment of TRUTH.
3. ASEH: the Principality of the rhythmic vibrational nature of spirit that manifests itself as a patterned egoless representation of TRUTH.
4. SHAI: the Principality of the function and destiny of all forms style and content towards the establishment of the purpose and function of Unconditional Love and TRUTH.
5. NEFER:  the Principality of the establishment of goodness and beauty in terms of behavioral character and action/function in all things based in TRUTH.
6. MET: the Principality of righteous conduct and right action towards the establishment of the eternal and timeless, spiritual, cultural and creative principles of Universal service and TRUTH.
7. BA AKHU: is the spiritual law and aesthetic/ethical criterion which culminates with the unification with Divine Light and TRUTH.

SEMEN EM KHEPERU  Foundation Of The Forms  (Principles of African Design)

These cosmic principles are the structural grounding of all creative work in the tradition of Ba Akhu.

ASEH; Drum/Rhythm

ASHA  ASEH; Polyrhythm

ASHA  KHEPERU; Polymorphism

MEN.KAY; Measure, Plumb-line, Rule of conduct

DENNU; Shape, Part, Layered Division

METU NEFER HEKAU; Right Order Of Symbols

TEKH; Plummet, Balance

TEPA EM KHEPERU  The Beginnings Of Forms And Shapes  (Elements of African Design)

These are the cosmic elements and parts of the creative process and parts of the artform that operate within the design structure of Ba Akhu aesthetics.

AUREH; Open, space, area

QETUT; Outline, drawing

QI; Shape, form, nature, essence

AWEN; Color, character, behavior

TUT; Image, symbol, form

AAKHU; Light

NETET; Texture, surface quality, knit, weave