Tag Archives: Art

Art

In Memory of Artist Azeb Zekiros: 1950 – 2011

Tadias Magazine
Art Talk

Updated: Sunday, November 13, 2011

New York (TADIAS) – Ethiopian-born visual artist Azeb Zekiros, who was one of the most active members of the Diaspora artists community, died suddenly on Monday, November 7th. She was 61 years old.

Sheba Azeb Zekiros left Ethiopia in her early teens and came to the US in 1967. She went to school in California and later attended the Art Students League in New York where she concentrated in drawing and painting. She received an Associate of Science degree in Interdisciplinary Studies from SUNY Empire State College in 2001, and Bachelor of Science degree in Community and Human Services. Azeb completed many credits through evaluation of her prior learning, and translated her knowledge of art and languages into college credit.

She was an employee of the American Association of Retired Persons.

In her artistic career spanning four decades, she has exhibited her works in several venues in the East Coast, including a one woman show at the Milestone Gallery; Black Burn Center, Howard University; Department of Education; Fondo Del Sol; The Meridian House International; Lansburgh’s Cultural Center; and the Harvard Kennedy School. She has lived in England, France, Denmark and Switzerland. In 1986 she was featured as part of the ‘Contemporary African Artists’ show at the United Nations.

In describing a few artists she admires, Azeb highlighted Skunder Boghossian and Julie Mehretu in a comment posted last February. “Julie Mehretu’s paintings are great, her sense of colors, space and time is amazing,” she said. “Even though they have different styles, I have been an admirer of Julie and Skunder’s work.” She added: “As a painter, I get inspired by Julie’s energetic expressions.”

Below are paintings by Azeb Zekiros:


Nubian Woman by Azeb Zekiros, 2007.


New York by Azeb Zekiros.
—
If You Go:
Funeral Service
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Service: 11:00-1:00
Interment: 1:00-2:00
Reception/Repass: 2:15-4:00
National Funeral Home
7482 Lee Highway
Falls Church, VA 22042
(703) 560-4400
—
Click here to share your memories or express your condolences.

Art, Featured

Galerie Alternance Features Works By Fikru Gebre Mariam

16 Comments

Above: Featured in exhibition at prestigious Galerie Alternance,
Fikru’s paintings have reached new levels of public recognition.

Tadias Magazine
Art Talk

Published: Friday, July 9, 2010

New York (Tadias) – An exhibition featuring recent works by internationally acclaimed Ethiopian artist Fikru Gebre Mariam will open at the prestigious Galerie Alternance in France this weekend.

In his 2009 profile of Fikru on Tadias Magazine, Donald N. Levine described the works as mostly depicting Ethiopian subjects, but expressed in geometric abstraction. “They convey a blend of rich hues, emotional intensity, immediacy of impact, and a touch of austerity,” Levine writes. “If asked to compare them to European artists, I would say that Fikru’s compositions offer a blend of Modigliani figures in a Giacomettian “Still Ladies” stance presented with Braquean geometric abstraction.”

In fact, the painter – who divides his time between his studios in Paris and Addis Ababa – tells the author that Braque was indeed his favorite artist. “Even so, there is no mistaking the deeply Ethiopian flavor of these paintings,” Levine says.”They display hints of Ethiopian miniatures and church paintings. They are imbued with African earth tones. They use the colored garments of Harari women. They capture the somber mood of much Ethiopian life.”

Levine goes on to describe how Fikru Gebre Mariam’s life in Paris and Addis Ababa influences his work. “The world of Ethiopian painters is, like much else about contemporary Ethiopian life, divided between those who have remained at home and attempted to be true to Ethiopian realities, and those who have emigrated and whose offspring evince a passion to emulate Western styles to a high degree. With studios in Paris and Addis Ababa, where he spends half a year each, Fikru savors all he can of both worlds. He insists that it is essential for his art that he remains close to his Ethiopian roots–and indeed has continued to live in his father’s gibbi (home) until now. At the same time, Fikru finds it no less essential to spend half of each year abroad. As he wrote me, “I believe the freedom of being out of Ethiopia has amazing value in my life and work. Both in Europe and the U.S., especially in Paris . . .visiting museums and art galleries bring dramatic important changes in my work. It is like seeing yourself in the big mirror, even if you think you know yourself.”

Fikru is a graduate of the Addis Ababa School of Fine Arts, founded by the distinguished artist Ale Felege Selam – who introduced modern methods of teaching drawing and painting, which he had studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in the 1950s. There, the artist became a protégé of instructor Tadesse Mesfin, who Levine says “not only taught him painterly skills but gave him a graphic theme which he would embrace, struggle with, and grow through, ever since.”

Here are recent images courtesy of the artist:

Art

“Bohemian” artists’ revolution in Ethiopia

1 Comment

Above: Ethiopian painter Dawit Abebe stands in front of one
of his paintings.

AFP
By Aaron Maasho
ADDIS ABABA — Ethiopian art, which for centuries has been synonymous with portraits of saints and political figures, now has a new breed of “bohemian” painters tackling bolder subjects, including sex-themed works. In a studio littered with squeezed paint tubes and drab canvases, Dawit Abebe, one of the artists spearheading the revolution, gazes intently at his latest paintings that include nude portraits. “You know, years back they would have been way too extreme,” he said. “Now Ethiopians have begun to understand that they’re just art, and not meant to encourage sex.” In the olden days under the patronage of Ethiopian emperors, clerics and feudal lords, artists illustrated manuscripts, painted icons and adorned the country’s remote monasteries with depictions of doe-eyed saints and angels as their main profession. Read more.

Art, Events

Jessica Rankin’s Solo Exhibition Featuring Embroidery

Tadias Events News
Published: Thursday, March 26th, 2009
(Opening Reception: Thursday, March 26th, 6-8 pm)

New York, NY – The Project is pleased to present Jessica Rankin’s second solo exhibition at the gallery featuring her embroidery works and a new series of drawings and watercolors. Rankin’s hand-embroidered panels of organdy resume her exploration of memory, geographic displacement and the passage of time. Embedded with personal, cartographic and scientific information, these detailed mosaics have also been inspired by the Enuma Elish, an ancient Babylonian epic poem about the creation of the universe.

Meandering between diaristic excerpts, poetic interludes and philosophical proposals, Rankin’s meticulously stitched textual patterns produce a field of non-linear associations reflecting the fragmentation and cross-referencing of lived experience in memory. With a visual vocabulary that relies heavily on the topographical and celestial—constellations, planets and river deltas, among others—Rankin integrates text and image to construct what she refers to as “brainscapes,” which function as abstract portraits of journeys, both physical and mental. In reference to past work, this new series of embroidery works were completed with a looser, more painterly approach with threads hanging from the organdy canvas. Delicately pinned an inch away from the wall, the translucent sheets of organdy allow Rankin’s handiwork to cast shadows, thereby adding a further level of depth and definition.


Above: Image: Untitled (detail), 2009, embroidery on organdy, 107 x 90
inches. (Courtesy of the artist and the gallery The Project).

Rankin’s drawings and watercolors pursue an alternate path in which details of landscapes come into focus. Trees, vegetation, rock formations, horizons, the Sun and the Moon are all featured as points of meditation for gestural brushstrokes and pooling washes of color.

Rankin was born in Sydney, Australia in 1971 and currently lives and works in Berlin, Germany. Recent solo exhibitions include White Cube, London (2007), P.S. 1 Contemporary Arts Center, Long Island City, NY (2006) and The Project, New York (2005), as well as selected group exhibitions at the Salina Art Centre, Salina, KS (2006) and Carlier l Gebauer, Berlin, Germany (2004), Artists’ Space, New York (2003), Greenberg Van Doren Fine Art, New York (2003), The Project, New York (2003).

If you go:
Opening Reception: Thursday, March 26th, 6-8 pm
The Project
37W 57th Street, 3rd floor
New York, NY 10019
T:+1 212 688 1585
F:+1 212 688 1589
www.elproyecto.com