Tesfaye Tessema is a leading member of his generation of African artists at the vanguard of synthesizing aspects of his rich cultural heritage with Western influences to create works of unique quality that are integral to the vision of the world he inhabits. As an African artist who has lived and practised in the West for the last three decades, he is acutely aware of the disorientation caused by migration and postcolonial experiences and he is conscious of the possibilities inherent in physical and spiritual journeys.
About:
For the artist, jazz has been a continous source of inspiration and his work reflects the syncopated and disjunctive elements of this uniquely African American musical genre. They also possess an iconic quality that convey his Coptic and Byzantine heritage that are in form and spirit convincing. At the core of Tesfaye’s recent work is an open-ended improvisational sensibility. This allows for constant development and transformation as sophisticated variations of abstract elements in color and form upon which are superimposed a pictorial system composed of social and cultural markers are layered on the canvas. The Afro-comb, a symbol of Black cultural identity is endlessly reworked and re-interpreted as a metaphor for the affirmation of Self and an ongoing rumination on metamorphosis and it’s consequences.
Comb Series, 2004.
Comb Series, 2004.
Untitled, 2012.
Tesfaye Tessema’s recent paintings exploits strategies that combine the physicality of paint, whether thin or thick, with an awareness of the role abstraction play as a means of expressing universal human emotions. He employs expressive gestures, deep sensitivity to texture and a mastery of tonality and color that gives his pictures a kind of interior glow where sight, memory and emotion fuse into a texture of vibrations and pulsations that allows the viewer a freedom of imagination, interpretation and emotional response. The question of where the inside and outside worlds meet, the ambiguity of space and surface tension are formally resolved in his pictures by an emphasis on concept and process over end-product while maintaining rigorous affirmative critical propositions about discrete cultural and historical realities.
Comb Series, 2004.
Tesfaye Tessema was born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia where he studied at the School of Fine Arts before leaving for the United States in the early 1970s. He obtained an MFA in Fine Art at Howard University, Washington DC, where he was exposed to the richness and diversity of the art of Africa, especially the classical art of West Africa where myth, metaphors and legend abound. His extensive travels in the Middle East, Europe, Africa and Mexico over the years have further broadened his perspectives on the commonality in socio-religious forms among various cultures. He has been included in numerous international survey including “Project Rolywholyobei – Circus from the Museum by John Cage”, 1994, Guggeinheim Museum, New York and Radford University Art Museum, Radford, Va, 2008. His work is in several public and private collections. (text and courtesy: Skoto Gallery New York)