Kirubel develops an artistic approach where texture becomes active memory, a vivid trace of what shapes and surrounds us

Kirubel Melke

In newly opened art studio/ gallery called bleu studio AA, in Addis Ababa.

Kirubel Melke is an Ethiopian artist whose artistic path is rooted in a quest for meaning, memory, and transmission. Initially drawn to drawing, he developed a deep passion for art at an early age, before first pursuing a path in marketing. But the visceral call of creation brought him back to the essential, and he joined the Alle School of Fine Arts and Design in Addis Ababa. Graduating in painting, Kirubel has built a unique trajectory, enriched by residencies, travels, exhibitions, and encounters —here in Addis Ababa, as well as in other countries across Africa and Europe.

His practice, inhabited and rich, traverses mediums, borders, and narratives. With textile as an anchor and memory as an inner compass, gestures and stories intertwine with precision. His work is distinguished by a rigorous attention to materials and a fascinating composition of fabric fragments and accessories filled with stories and lived experiences. At the intersection of gesture and matter, it questions our ways of seeing, feeling, and transmitting.

Textile holds a central place in his work—as living memory and as the skin of the world. Each piece embodies a silent reflection, a meditation, the virtue of patience, and a dialogue between heritage and transformation. Kirubel develops an artistic approach where texture becomes active memory, a vivid trace of what shapes and surrounds us. It is a space of transformation, where matter thinks, textures whisper, and gesture transmits. Kirubel does not work with material solely for its texture, but for its symbolic value.

Marie Showit Jean, curator