On the verge of giving up on his artistic ambitions and under pressure to join the army, Michael Blebo was saved by an agency dedicated to bringing the art of Africa to collectors worldwide

On the same day that Ghanaian artist Michael Blebo contemplated quitting art altogether, he received a missed call from an unknown number. “I prayed to God before going to bed in early February that if I don’t see a sign by midday, I’ll be done with painting,” says the 31-year-old, from Nuhalenya, a hamlet in the Greater Accra region. “I had done everything that an artist was supposed to do. I saw no future in what I was doing, especially because I’m the breadwinner for my mother, my father, who has been bedridden for close to four years, and my four sisters.”

The missed phone call, however, was from PieceUnique, a new agency for African artists that wanted to represent him.