Painting chosen for jazz fest poster

An artwork by an Ethiopian artist Eskender (Alex) Maffi has been selected as a poster for an international jazz festival. The acrylic painting titled “The Pianist” would be the 2011 official Montreal Jazz Festival poster. The Canadian festival is one of the most prestigious music events of the year and the 32nd edition will be held from June 25 to July 4, 2011. Many of the early festival posters were portrait-like renderings of performers but more than a decade, most have been abstracts.
The “Pianist“came to the festival organizer’s attention after it was first exhibited in a private gallery in Switzerland, Genève on June 2010.The Genève-based artist who is currently in Addis said that he is thrilled to see his work used to promote the music festival.

Born in France to Ethiopian parents in 1973, Alex began school in Addis’s Lycée Guebre Mariam. After school, he headed to Genève and studied at Graphic Design Institute from 1989-1992.
Residing in Switzerland since then, Alex has been pursuing his passion for painting along with his designing career. Working with Ethiopian alphabet, a style pioneered by artists such as Wosene Worke kosrof, the artist has been showing aspects of the Ethiopian culture and tradition to a larger world. His exposure to different cultures and his experiences as an émigré has infused his works with a liveliness characterized by bright colors and a dance of images.

The artist has displayed his art at Sheraton Addis’s Art of Ethiopia exhibition in 2009 and 2010.His piece “Makeda” shown at this year’s exhibition has as its theme Queen Makeda’s trip to King Solomon’s palace in search of wisdom. The work was notable for its usage of color for reflecting the flora and fauna of Ethiopia. It has fetched 30,000 Ethiopian birr, according to the artist.