Booth E5
Addis Fine Art is pleased to be presenting a group booth of three artists from Ethiopia: Addis Gezehagn (b.1978), Engdaye Lemma (b.1980), and Nahom Teklehaimanot (b.1991). Coming from different stages in their careers, and working across different sizes and mediums, the artists engage with collage practice to explore contemporary life and urbanisation in Ethiopia.
Addis Gezehagn’s large-scale collage works are made by layering magazine cut-outs with acrylic paint, creating dreamlike cityscapes which defy scale and introduce new perspectives. These patchwork cityscapes capture the random pattern of living, one structure on top of another, that has gradually and organically developed in the Ethiopian capital. Gezehagn reimagines Addis Ababa and its unrestrained urbanity, his Floating Cities attendant to the transformations that continuously occur in the city.
Engdaye Lemma’s experimental print-making practice synthesises screen-printing, painting, and collage media. Exploring the many ways in which life and culture intertwine, his work interrogates the texture of society. Living and working in the bustling city of Addis Ababa, for Engdaye, the ebbs and flows of city life are a subject of deep curiosity. He often reflects on the ways in which public and private spaces overlap in urban environments. The visual density of his works speaks to the everyday chaos of life in the city: the rapid pace of change and movement, the blurred boundaries of individuality and collectivity, the rhythmic cacophony, and the continuous creation of residual artefacts.
Nahom Tecklehaimanot first creates an assemblage of collaged images from magazines and archives before meticulously airbrushing these pieces into a cohesive two-dimensional composition. The smooth, almost ethereal quality of the airbrushing evokes the longing for a familiar comfort, a sense of belonging that has been disrupted. The fractured and fragmented nature of the disparate images, however, reveals the stark reality of displacement. The airbrush’s hazy touch, a reminder of fading memories and the life left behind, stands in contrast with the jarring edges of the composition, symbolising the sudden and often traumatic transition of migration. The works at once address the pain and uncertainty of displacement, and also embrace the resilience and adaptability that come with navigating a new environment.
