Press Release
WOSENE KOSROF
April 18th – May 25th, 2002
Press Release
Wosene Kosrof, a leading Ethiopian-born painter, will be in New York to open an exhibition of some recent works at Skoto Gallery. The opening of the show is Thursday, April 18th from 6-8pm.
The works in the exhibition are from Wosene’s continuing series The Color of Words. The series title reflects the artist’s innovative use of calligraphic symbols which are at the core of his works, and masterful use of color. Wosene is among the first Ethiopian painters to integrate Amharic calligraphy as a core element of design in contemporary abstract painting. One of the three major languages of Ethiopia, Amharic consists of 228symbols and is one of the only languages native to Africa which has an ancient written system.
Wosene, as the artist is known professionally, was born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, completed his BFA at the Addis School Fine Arts, then went on to finish an MFA at Howard University’s School of Fine Arts in 1980. He was twice commisioned by the United Nations to produce paintings, and one of his paintings was made into a stamp for the the 1986 UN theme Africa in Crisis. In 1995, his paintings were featured in Seven Stories About Modern Art in Africa, a major exhibition of contemporary African art at the WhiteChapel Gallery in London. He was the first African artist to become in 1996, a Rockefeller artist-in-residence at the Foundation’s Bellagio Center in Lake Como, Italy. His works are in the permanent collections at the Indianaplois Museum of Art, the Voelkerkunde Museum in Zurich, Switzerland, the National Museum of Ethiopia in Addis Ababa and the Rockefeller Collection. Most recently, the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African Art, Washington DC purchased his work for inclusion in their permanent colllection.
Wosene’s paintings clearly demonstrate his versatility when working with space and color. Done on canvas, linen or goatskin, his works entice the viewer to take time with the painting, to move one’s eyes around the canvas and find a point of entry into a seemimg three-dimensional composition. He skillfully integrates elongated, stylized and dissembled language characters with abstracted masks, textile patterns and architectural forms from many African cultures to create compositions that are full of depth and movement.
“I work a lot with gesso and modelling paste to produce intricate surface extures”, Wosene explains. “With the goatskin, I create sculptural paintings and assemblages with mixed media, such as aluminium, nails, credit cards and soda cans. I like to work with fast-drying acrylic paints, because they draw me into the painting process and strenghten my concentration by forcing me to constantly make aesthetic decisions. Acrylic also allows me to create and destroy layers of color to produce visual depth in my work”
With Amharic calligraphy, Wosene explores the aesthetic dimensions of the script rather than producing legible text. “I am seeking the poetic or artistic value of the “fiedel” or language symbols themselves and I see my work as visual poetry. The writing in my painting does not tell a literal story, but rather a visual story. The Amharic “fiedel” are extremely beautiful and have rhythmic and dancing forms. I “choreograph” them on canvas, I cut them apart, turn them upside down, repeat sections of them to discover the beauty of written language and to think about how we communicate. I communicate with color, line and composition, rather than with sounds, conventional words and literal narratives”.
Rhythm and movement are almost palpable in Wosene’s paintings and he describes the importance of jazz for his work. “African-American jazz with its erotic and reflective rhythms, is s second major source of inspiration for my paintings. With its counterpoints and improvisations, its bass rhythms and drumming, jazz becomes visual elements of color, line, mood and voice in my work. When painting, I capture and interpret the rhythms as movement on the surface of the canvas and let jazz artists like Thelonious Monk or Charlie Parker inspire the pacing of the symbols, the mix of colors and the silent spaces between the lines”
