Mother of youngest male artist narrates how she discovered her son’s skill through what meant to be a distraction
Mother of the world record holder for the youngest male artist, Chantelle Kuukua Eghan has revealed how she discovered her son, Ace Liam Ankrah’s painting skills.
Chantelle in an interview on The Afternoon Show on Wednesday, July 17 opened up about how she only wanted to distract her son Ace Liam who was just eleven months old at the time, from interrupting her works.
Chantelle, also an artist had been contracted to create a cave painting for the 2023 Miss Universe Ghana representative in the US. As busy as she was with her painting, Chantelle decided to avoid any interruption from her baby boy at the time.
According to her, she decided to lay a painting canvass board on the floor and spread different colours of paints for Ace Liam to play with it, just to keep Ace Liam busy and keep him away from distracting her.
Chantelle further narrated that after a while, she raised the canvass board to show it to her grandmother who said “this looks like an abstract painting”.
“Being an artiste myself, I was commissioned by Miss Universe Ghana to paint a cave for the 2023 representative in the US. So, I was so busy and I wanted to find a distraction for him.
“I spread out a canvass board on the floor and I put some paints on it and I wanted him to crawl and try and figure it out.
“I didn’t even tell him anything, he started chasing the paints and spreading it with his hands. I raised it and my grandmother said that looks like an abstract work and I said you forget about it,” she shared on TV3.
Since then, from the age of eleven months, Chantelle decided to try Ace Liam’s painting skills again by giving a painting brush time around and paints.
She was amazed by her son’s works and has since, consistently allowed Ace to paint and exhibit his skills.
“So, at the age of eleven months, I had not made him create a painting since then but eleven months I engaged him again, this time with a brush and he started painting and I said this looks like something he enjoys.
“So that’s what we started doing from the age of eleven months and then I chanced upon the Guinness World Record for youngest artiste and I applied for him,” she added.
The Guinness World Record confirmed Ace Liam Ankrah as the youngest male artist at just one-year-old 152 days in May 2024.
Ace Liam ended the reign of Dante Lamb, a three-year-old who has reportedly held the title since 2003.
Liam attempted the Guinness World Records in Accra between January 18 and January 20, 2024.
Chantelle expressed her commitment to building up Ace’s painting skills as a website has currently been created to outdoor his paintings.
Ace Liam who is now 2 years old, has also receive support from several sponsors including Wondercoat from BBC industrials Ghana Limited to provide acrylic paints for his works.
