Zerihun retrospective to open

Lela Art Gallery will present a retrospective of the work of Zerihun Yetmegeta in a new exhibition opening Saturday, April 20. “Yekelebet Menged” (Ring Road) will run through May 12th at LeLa Contemporary art Gallery in Addis Ababa. Zerihun is widely recognized as one of the most important and influential artists in contemporary Ethiopian art, in a career that spans almost five decades.
“Zerihun explores for the past 50 years the visualization of space by creating an illusion of depth and engages the viewer in the game of seeking recognizable imagery and inventing his own visual chronicle,” an associate curator, Leo Lefort said.
The exhibition will feature black and white paintings, prints, drawings which according to the curator “allude to the textural quality of sculpture -equating Paul Klee or Pierre Soulages- suggesting a third dimension where there is only the flat surface of the canvas.”
As Leo noted, “Like a distant mirage, the viewer is drawn into the works of Zerihun, wanting to explore the multiple layers of information: referring to symbols, gods and Saints, motifs inherited from magic scrolls, Akan akua’ba figure from Ghana or King Ezana.”
The exhibition will explore dominant themes throughout Zerihun’s career, including mythology and fiction, anthropology and truth, illusion, duality, myth, and fairy tale. “The irradiation of color and the absence of a precise narrative,” will be the main feature of the show, according to the curator.
For more, go to LeLa Art Gallery website.