A Review of Daniel Taye’s exhibit

Daniel Taye’s Oil Baron, an exhibit of 25 paintings is on view at the Lela Art Gallery from September 15 through September 30, 2012.Daniel who is best known for his portraits and landscapes is admired by art lovers and fellow artists. The artist who a few years ago reportedly suffered bouts of depression, alcoholism and an inability to paint has been fighting against all his hurdles and working up right to the end. With the help of his girlfriend (whose beautiful portrait he has done for this year’s Art of Ethiopia) who is encouraging him to keep painting, Daniel is getting back his momentum and producing high technical standards like those he did before.

Fourth Installment of Art of Ethiopia

Rain and wet weather din’t stop art lovers in Addis from heading to the city’s luxury hotel, the Sheraton Addis’s Lalibela Grand Ballroom for the fourth installment of Art of Ethiopia. It is the city’s biggest such show and it has become an important platform for the art fraternity to do business. The exhibition, installed by a curator from Dubai, has contained 400 works, arranged according to topics and color resemblance. But a uniting preoccupation seems to be matters of identity, history, place and social criticism. This year some big names such as Afewerk Tekle, Alle Felege Selam, Mezgebu Tesemma, Worku Mamo, Bekele Mekonnen were conspicuously absent. A great number of the artists were under 35, and there were more women than before, (ten to what was seven last year). Though each of the artists presented ten works, their works were randomly placed, making it at times harder for the spectator to follow the artist’s train of thought.