People&Places: One of Ghana’s best – Ashenso, the artist rewriting Ghana’s history with a brush

Give him a brush, a canvas, a plain wall, or your skin and a concept will be born, with or without you telling him your options.

It’s what he does and he is one of the best at it in the country. Anthony Jefferson Hanson, born and bred in Ghana, took a peculiar liking to art during his adolescence and didn’t refrain from exhibiting it.

At any opportunity, Anthony would use the resources available to him to draw and or paint; even his mother’s makeup items.

He admits his skills were limited academically and this created the wrong impression in the minds of his teachers in basic and secondary school.

But one thing was obvious; he knew what he wanted and he was going to fight for it.

Anthony who is also known as Ashenso told GhanaWeb’s People&Places team that his grandfather who was one of the pioneers of Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Emmanuel Ewusi Essel was his motivation, and soon, he was doing ‘magic’ with his brush.

Word spread fast and the world began to appreciate him for his great gift of art.

Later, after school, and gifted a tattoo gun, Anthony decided to start body art; tattooing and is now spectacular at his work.

He has worked on and with many celebrities and personalities globally and is making Ghana proud.

Watch Anthony Jefferson Hanson tell his story on this edition of People&Places: