Painter and poet · Ghana
Sharon Dede Padi
Sharon Dede Padi (1976–2026), known as Padiki, was a Ghanaian visual artist and poet, celebrated for paintings made by printing with real leaves. In Accra she created the world's largest leaf-print painting, recognised by Guinness World Records, and she was a prominent voice in Ghana's creative arts. She died in July 2026, aged 50.
Updated 3 min read
From architecture to leaves
Sharon Dede Padi was born in Ghana on 24 June 1976. She went to Krobo Girls' and then Aburi Girls' Senior High School, studied architecture at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Kumasi, and worked in project management before art became her career. Working under the name Padiki, she developed a technique of printing with leaves, and she was also a poet who spoke widely about creativity, women in the arts and the environment.
How the pictures are made
Each picture is built from real leaves. She coated a leaf in paint and pressed it onto the canvas, so that its outline, stem and veins print as a single mark; many such marks, overlapping and turned in different directions, make up a figure, a plant, a landscape or a pattern. Up close you see the leaves, each one different; from a distance you see the image they form. Her subjects were nature and Ghanaian life, history and culture, and the method itself carried a message about the environment: the material of the picture was gathered, not bought.
The record
Her best-known work is a reimagining of Ghana's flag made entirely from leaf prints, painted, according to Ghana's tourism ministry, in 33 hours. Made in Accra and measuring 54.33 square metres, it was recognised by Guinness World Records as the largest leaf-print painting, the first record of its kind.
Look at which leaves she chose. The prints come from plants gathered across Ghana — neem, plantain, cocoyam, cassava, cocoa, coffee, shea, orange and lemon — and, as the Ghana Association of Visual Artists put it, the work celebrated the country's food, its medicinal plants, its rites and its festivals through the colours of the flag. She also presented it as a campaign against deforestation and illegal mining, a way of making the plants themselves heard. A national symbol built from crops and healing plants gathered across the country is a statement about what holds a country together.
Exhibitions and work with others
In December 2022 she founded the Padiki Art Gallery, where she showed her work and mentored younger artists. Among her last exhibitions, her symbolic shackles were shown at Osu Castle, the former slave-trading fort in Accra, for Ghana's commemoration of Juneteenth. She also painted live before audiences: in May 2026 she unveiled Two Kingdoms, One Africa for King Mswati III of Eswatini. She was preparing Unity in Leaves for the Commonwealth Earth Canvas at a festival in Milton Keynes, in Britain, when she died. She was named Most Outstanding Female in Art at the Feminine Ghana Achievement Awards, and in 2022 joined the board of Ghana Digital Centres Limited.
Death and tributes
Days before her death, the Okuapehene, Oseadeeyo Kwasi Akuffo III, paramount chief of Akuapem, and his elders named her ambassador for the 200th anniversary of the Akuapem Odwira festival; at the festival's launch she unveiled a live painting of him. She died on 7 July 2026, aged 50. The Ghana Tourism Authority, the Ghana Association of Visual Artists and her old school paid tribute, and the minister for tourism, culture and the creative arts visited her family. Her funeral was held on 26 September 2026 at the State House forecourt in Accra.
Where to see her work
Her record-setting flag and her other leaf prints were made and shown in Ghana; the Padiki Art Gallery, which she founded, was the home of her work.
See also
Other Ghanaian artists on this site: Ibrahim Mahama and Amoako Boafo; our guide to African women artists; and our lists of Ghanaian painters and Ghanaian artists.
