Tesfaye Urgessa, born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 1984
No Country for Young Men 5, 2016-2017
About:
Awed creatures, framed in breakable soulrooms in a surreal world. That’s the artistic handwriting by Tesfaye Urgessa in a few words. Arthistorical references to Francis Bacon, Egon Schiele or Lucien Freud are obvious, but not the central explanation of his artworks. The intensive biographical references are the heart of Urgessas complex and artworks.
Gesicht 3, 2016.
For his creative education Tesfaye Urgessa went from Ethiopia to Stuttgart. Far away from home he is confronted with racism, beeing a stranger in an other culture and inequality. All these bad feelings and incidents are represented and reprocessed in his huge artworks in oil on canvas, without any drawing study.
Die Beobachteten 13, 2015.
The shy protagonists on his paintings are truly naked. Not only the physical nudeness but also the rough painting technique makes the creatures appear afraid and fearful. The mental instability of these figures are constructed by sensitive soulrooms in surreal worlds with the medium of colourful surfaces, screaming pattern and changes in perspective. The observer is an important player in these soulworlds. His curious view turns him into the artwork, as voyeur and invader.
Home wherever you may be, 2015.
Beside the narrative force there is the balance between the hard and soft forming, Balance zwischen schwerer und leichter Formgebung, bright and dark colours, concrete and abstract moments, which constitute an unmistakable style. (courtesy Evelyn Drewes Gallery)
(Elisa Hornacek)