Wosene Worke Kosrof: Recent Paintings. Words: From Spoken To Seen

Press Release

WOSENE WORKE KOSROF
February 7th – March 20th, 2004

Press Release

Skoto Gallery is pleased to present “WORDS:: FROM SPOKEN TO SEEN”, an exhibition of recent paintings by the Ethiopian-born artist Wosene Worke Kosrof. This will be his second solo exhibition at the gallery. A reception for the artist is scheduled Saturday, February 14th, 5-8pm.

The works in this show are drawn from Wosene’s ongoing series – “Color of Words”, as are the selections in his travelling exhibition – “My Ethiopia: Recent Paintings by Wosene Worke Kosrof” presently on view at The Newark Museum, Newark, NJ through August 2004. The body of works in the series continue the artist’s exploration of the abstract dimensions of the Amharic writing or fiedel in his creative endeavors. One of the three major languages of Ethiopia, Amharic consists of 228 symbols and is also one of the few languages native to Africa which has an ancient written system.

As one continues to look at the works from the Color of Words series by an artist who has been practising for nearly three decades, one can’t help but make associations with his works to the syncopated and disjunctive elements of jazz, specifically the Be-bop and Free Jazz compositions of artists like Eric Dolphy, John Coltrane, Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk, Ornette Coleman, Charles Mingus and Cecil Taylor among others. The graceful lines, colors and tonal textures in his work move and mime the sonic dissonance in this very unique African-American music genre, as his use of Amharic calligraphic symbols become distorted, exaggerated, stretched and reshaped into whole new forms – and a whole new visual expression. Wosene’s works are wrought out of a very unique consciousness, vision, circumstance and tradition and they make us simply believe in the power of art to speak to us in purely human terms.

Wosene was born in the Arat Kilo district of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, completed his BFA at the Addis Ababa School of Fine Arts, then went on to finish an MFA at Howard University in 1980. He is an artist of international reputation, exhibiting widely in Africa, Europe, Japan, the United States and the Caribbean. Recent exhibtions include Galeria Botello, San Juan, Puerto Rico in 2003; Ethiopian Passages: Dialogues in the Diaspora at The National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC. Upcoming exhibitions include “Inscribing Meaning: African Arts of Communication” scheduled for 2005 and jointly organized by The National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC and UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History, Los Angeles, Ca. Collections include The National Museum of Ethiopia, Addis Ababa, Rockefeller Collection, The Neuberger Museum at SUNY-Purchase, Indianapolis Museum of Art and The Voelkerkunde Museum, Zurich, Switzerland.

Wosene’s current travelling exhibition – “My Ethiopia”, curated by Dr. Christa Clarke, will also be on view at the Newark Museum of Art, Newark, NJ from January 31st thru August 29th, 2004. Catalogue available.