MULUGETA TAFESSE
Mulugeta Tafesse is an artist and independent researcher focusing on modern and contemporary African art. He studied fine arts in Addis Ababa, Sofia and Antwerp, lectured at Addis Ababa University and was a guest lecturer at HISK Antwerp and Hasselt Visual Arts Academy. He obtained his cum laude PhD from La Laguna University in 2012. In 2014, he was a R.A.T. artist in residence in Mexico City; in 2018, a panel organizer at the 20th International Conference of Ethiopian Studies at Mekelle University - ICES20 Ethiopia, and in 2020 artist in residence at the Frans Masereel Center, Kasterlee Belgium.
“Mulugeta Tafesse has been living in Belgium since the early nineties. He too is a mental nomad who can draw from several models. One can be physically in a place while being elsewhere in one’s mind. Some people may travel, but without moving mentally, so that, in fact, they always remain on the same spot. His work often exudes a warmth of memories that revolve back to his place of origin. Whereas, in Western art, the idea sometimes dominates, the sensual effect, he reintroduces this sensual aspect in his works. His work is an opening to another world, which we all know, because it is universal. Without pretensions he rediscovers archetypal forms. His work abounds with references to the human form, without being in any way naturalistic. The forms thus created offer surreptitious resistance and refuse to yield to common knowledge. Still, in their hidden existence, they leave their mark, on the course of events, the way a passer-by could do. His visual plane is the concentration of an entire world, in which pictorial nodes are nestled. Although it makes a fragmented impression, in fact, its whirling is aimed at unity. In his work, one can hardly speak, of a short-circuit of traditions. Rather, it should be described as the embodiment of the shared undercurrent that moves all things.” - Stef Van Bellingen, 1999
This text is edited from the introduction of the exhibition catalogue Nieuw Millenium: Geloof, Hoop en Liefde (New Millenium: Belive, Hope and Love), De Warande, Turnhout 1999.