6. Addis Gezehagn: Floating City, Addis Fine Art, Addis Ababa
With locations in London and Ethiopia, Addis Fine Art is a leading contemporary art gallery, exhibiting work by artists from Africa’s diasporas through local and international programmes. In their light-filled gallery space in Ethiopia this spring, Addis Gezehagn returns with his painting series Floating City. Gezehagn is a long-standing artist at the gallery, known for his intricate, multi-medium paintings that take months to complete. In this exhibition, the artist looks at Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, from a panoptic perspective to examine how the city has metamorphosed over his lifespan. Layers upon layers of paint and colour depict a frantic and frenetic urban life, and the panic of expansion that comes with this, as businesses and corporations overwrite human ritual and life. Gezehagn looks at what has been lost as a result of this excess