Almighty God Says Stop Smoking

Abstract

This admittedly proselytizing editorial “Artist’s Portfolio,” is an appendix to my previous article “The Art of Almighty God: in His Own Words” (African Arts 47 [2]:14–33, 2014). After his conversion to Christianity, and in concert with his paintings celebrating that event, one of the earliest manifestations of being born again in Kwame Akoto’s “creativity art” was and continues to be an extensive series of paintings that formed a campaign against smoking that has now extended over twenty years. This staple typically includes the text “I Will Stop Smoking for It Kills Gradually,” or variations of it. The first in the series featured an interpretation of the “Joe Camel” image (Fig. 1) that permeated the advertising for Camel Cigarettes from the mid 1970s through most of the ‘90s. The source image was a 1974 caricature by the British artist Billy Coulton, created for a French advertising firm, of the original “Old Joe” dromedary that adorned every pack of Camels since 1913. In addition to the “I Will Stop Smoking” inscription at the top of this early Joe Camel painting, there is a second inscription at the bottom: “Why Spend Money On What does not Satisfy? Why Spend your wages and still be hungry? Listen to me and do What I say, and you will enjoy in best food for all. ISAIAH 55:2” [“Why spend your money for what is not food, your earnings on what fails to satisfy? Listen to me and you will fare well, you will enjoy the fat of the land.” The Revised English Bible]. Here he shifts the attention away from health issues onto financial ones as they relate to food, i.e., responsible spending and family priorities. References to food reappear frequently in his paintings, including many that are ostensibly focused on other issues. Almighty’s series was created as a response to his own smoking problem and to his belief that the habit was both unhealthy and unchristian. He was also aware of the international attention beginning around 1991 rising out of the United States that documented and accused R.J. Reynolds (Camel’s parent company) of using cute and hip depictions of Joe Camel to target and attract youth to the brand. Aware of the specific brand identification of his first Joe Camel images in the “I Will Stop Smoking” series, he quickly moved on to a variety of old and sometimes very young men smoking cigarettes (Figs. 2–4). Interestingly, to my knowledge, as of this writing, neither he nor members of the workshop have painted any females smoking. When queried about this in 2006, he said simply, “That is not a problem.” Simultaneously with human imagery, Almighty moved into the larger animal kingdom and beyond. The inventory of critters represented in these works is enormous and ranges from more camels, plus horses and elephants (Figs. 5–7) to smoking dogs, cats, roosters, pigs, sheep, and cows, (Figs. 8–13) to a wide array of smoking simians (Figs. 14–15) and lions and tigers and bears, oh my! (Figs. 16–18). There are even smoking snakes, frogs, and fish (Figs. 19–21), the latter perhaps requiring a certain leap of faith since as we all know, whenever a fish smokes, it requires extraordinary effort. Plants are not exempt from depictions in the series and I have documented smoking cabbages, tomatoes, peppers, onions, and bananas, among others (Fig. 22). About 75 percent of these paintings feature the phrase “I will [sometimes “must”] stop smoking for it kills gradually.” Still, telling variations do exist. A human head smoking a cigarette has the inscription “Lust of Cigarette is Really Disturbing Me, Jesus Help Me.” That smoking is seen by Almighty as a form of lust merges two of his major proselytizing concerns. Another bearded human head (Fig. 23) pleas “OH! GOD HELP ME TO STOP SMOKING.” And a human skull with a dead cigarette in its mouth (Fig. 24) displays an emphatic “IF YOU DO NOT KNOW LET ME TELL YOU, Smoking Killed Me.” And in another vari-