Sheku “Goldfinger” Fofanah

Sheku “Goldfinger” Fofanah (born 1976, in Freetown, Sierra Leone) is a Sierra Leonean artist whose masquerade practice explores performance, identity, social belonging, and the dynamic visual language of Sierra Leonean masquerade traditions. Working across masquerade design and construction, Fofanah examines continuity and invention through intricate costumes and objects that blend “fancy” and “fierce” aesthetics associated with Ordehlay, Hunting, and Jollay performance cultures.  Based in the Fourah Bay community, Fofanah is the resident kotu (builder/artist) for the Gladiators Power Ordehlay Society, cofounded by his father, and he also contributes to societies such as Tourist Ojeh and Omo Jessah Hunting. His work often engages masquerade genres including Jollay, Ordehlay, and Hunting, using fabric, sequins, wood, paint, glue, and highly detailed surface design to consider how masquerade acts as both performative art and a durable social marker in a rapidly changing world.  His work has been featured in New African Masquerades: Artistic Innovations and Collaborations, first shown at the New Orleans Museum of Art in 2025 and then traveling to the Frist Art Museum and San Antonio Museum of Art. Museum sources note that his designs are sought after in Sierra Leone, The Gambia, Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom, and that they are part of the Sierra Leone National Museum; they also note a British Museum commission connected to Sierra Leone’s fiftieth independence anniversary.