| Zerihun Yetmgeta
After the Emperor was deposed in 1974, life was very difficult. It was a struggle because I had little freedom to express myself. But since the overthrow of the Derg in 1991,[1] life has been much better-I no longer feel the oppression, I have a lot of energy, things have really opened up. I used to be pretty wild-more outspoken, more restless than I am now. Before I got married, I used to work during the night and sleep in the day. But after I started teaching at the Art School, after I got married, my program completely changed. I now teach in the morning, after lunch I have a little nap, and then after 3 o'clock I start to paint and sometimes work until midnight or even later. I include very important things in my artwork-important subjects, like Ethiopian motifs, so that the Ethiopian traditional character cannot be forgotten. I am pulling many of these things out of the grave and showing them to the public. I am saying through my art: "This is our tradition, this is what we have to follow." Much of my work is deeply rooted in my own tradition. My work has been exhibited in Dakar, Zurich, Havana, and other places and this has allowed me to travel abroad-wherever I go, I have an explosion in my mind-these experiences have had a great influence on my work. One can see a special use of color and a flatness that is distinctively Ethiopian in many of my paintings. This comes from my knowledge of Ethiopian church paintings. Most of my art is a transformation. I transform my experiences: the things I hear, the things I see, the things I feel. I listen to the international and national news and to music, mostly jazz. I put all this together with my own imagination and I put it on a canvas, on a board, or on anything. My works are like poems, like "wax and gold."[2] |
I consider myself an international artist who draws upon his cultural roots in Ethiopia but also, more broadly, in Africa. I was born here in Addis Ababa in 1941. My father, Yetmgeta Beleta, owned a small transportation business, and my mother, Yemenesch Makonnen, was a traditional housewife.