When she climbed the stairs into the JoyNews studios on Thursday little did the co-host of the AM Show, Mamavi Owusu-Aboagye know there was a surprise for her on the show.

Early that week, she had informed her production team that Anthony Jefferson Hanson known by stage name Ashenso_Gh would paint a portrait live on the show. Well, that portrait turned out to be a picture of herself.

The rainbow-coloured passport-sized frame of a picture took her by surprise and she couldn’t hide her excitement and emotions. She became emotional at that point.
“Is that me?” Mamavi quizzed on live TV. “I am speechless. I am just looking at the painting. Like I want to take off my mask right now. Oh! My God. I am speechless right now. Like I can’t … This is for me”

The painter, Ashenso_Gh, who has been painting for well over a decade explains how he arrived at the decision to paint the bubbly Mamavi Owusu-Aboagye.

“I wasn’t sure what I wanted to achieve. I was just creating something out of nothing so it took a longer period than it usually should. I had an earlier idea but it was cancelled and I had to develop something on my toes and I am even happy it came out like this”.

He further explained why he rainbow coloured the portrait.

“Yeah! I was trying to make it vibrant and stand out as in the figure I’ve achieved. This is a replica of Mamavi’s image so whatever that goes on in the background, I wanted to bring it on the foreplay. I wanted it to be on her face as part of the artistic idea. It’s an attention determining factor”.

He says though his planned painting fell through at the last minute, he accepted the challenge though it was difficult.

“Usually, I would spend time scaling the image to get the balance and proportion right. But with this, I had to think on my feet and I’m glad I’ve achieved what I wanted to achieve. If I am drawing a popular image, I need to get it right to avoid bad criticism”.

Though the artiste thinks the portrait could have been nicer, Mamavi Owusu-Aboagye’s excitement sent a different picture to him, assuring him his finished work was awesome. And that memory will be with Mamavi for the rest of her life.