Ace-Liam Nana Sam Ankrah

From Accra to the Guinness World Records — Before His Second Birthday

In Accra, Ghana, the studio of visual artist Chantelle Kuukua Eghan was not primarily designed with a baby in mind. But babies, as any parent discovers, have a way of making environments their own. When Chantelle's son Ace-Liam Nana Sam Ankrah was around six months old, he began reaching toward the materials that surrounded him in his mother's workspace: the brushes, the paint, the canvas. What followed was not the chaotic smearing of an infant encountering interesting textures. It was something that gave his mother — herself a trained visual artist with a professional eye — immediate and serious pause.

Ace-Liam appeared to be painting with intent.

The word "intent" is, inevitably, contested when applied to a child who cannot yet walk or speak. But the distinctions that Chantelle observed — the way her son selected colors, returned to areas of the canvas, and engaged with the surface over time rather than making a single random gesture — were consistent enough, across multiple sessions, that she began documenting them carefully. The documentation began as maternal wonder. It became, in time, an international record.

On December 15, 2023, Guinness World Records officially certified Ace-Liam Nana Sam Ankrah as the world's youngest male artist — defined as the youngest male to create artworks that have been publicly exhibited and sold. He was one year and 152 days old. The record made him the youngest achiever in the seventy-year history of the Guinness World Records organization — a distinction that placed him in the company of Simone Biles, Usain Bolt, and Dolly Parton in the special 70th anniversary edition of the annual record book.

By the time the record was certified, Ace-Liam had already participated in his first group exhibition — The Soundout Premium Exhibition at the Museum of Science and Technology in Ghana. Ten of his paintings were displayed and put up for sale. Nine sold. The buyers were not purchasing a curiosity; they were purchasing small canvases that held genuine visual interest, works that emerged from whatever combination of motor impulse, sensory response, and inherited artistic instinct Ace-Liam brought to the surface before him.

"He doesn't know the world is watching. He just paints because something in him needs to. That's the purest form of art there is." — Chantelle Kuukua Eghan, Ace-Liam's mother and artist

Global media responded with the kind of astonishment that Aelita Andre had generated a decade before in Australia — though Ace-Liam's case was distinguished by both his younger age and the specific cultural context: a Ghanaian toddler, son of a professional African artist, documented in Accra, whose story spread through BBC, CNN, Smithsonian Magazine, the Associated Press, ABC News, CBS, The Telegraph UK, and the New York Post. The African art world, which has long struggled for visibility in global media, found itself at the center of an international story about what artistic expression looks like at its most foundational.

On December 4, 2025, Ace-Liam was confirmed as a winner of the 2025 Global Child Prodigy Award — an annual recognition given to children who have achieved extraordinary accomplishments. He was two years old, having turned two on July 16, 2024. On his second birthday, his family launched an outreach initiative in his name, dedicated to providing art materials to children in Ghanaian communities who might not otherwise have access to them. Ace-Liam, evidently, was being raised to understand that what he had been given was something to share.

"From Ghana to the world — we always knew Africa had gifts the world had never seen. Ace-Liam is showing the world what we already knew." — Statement by Ace-Liam's family

He is, as of April 2026, two years and nine months old. He has 20+ completed paintings. He has a Guinness record, a Global Child Prodigy Award, and a story that has circled the globe. He is still, technically, a toddler.