Girmachew Getnet
13 September – 1 October 2022
In the words of Girmachew Getnet, ‘nature by itself is truth.’ Throughout his latest body of large-scale works on linen and midsized art cardboard pieces, Girmachew explores the far reaches of this succinct yet meaning-loaded aphorism.
Following his graduation from the Alle School of Fine Arts and Design in Addis Ababa, and after some years living and working in the Ethiopian capital where he co-founded the Habesha Art Studio with a number of his classmates, Girmachew relocated to Frankfurt, Germany in 2010. Rather than allowing himself to be overcome by the sudden geographic isolation from the communities – artistic and otherwise – that he had built around himself in Ethiopia, Girmachew looked at this different environment as an opportunity for growth and internal development. His newfound solitude became rich soil within which he could plant the seeds of his personal experience and allow them to grow into the diverse garden of well-formed ideas that weave their way throughout his paintings.
Through his work, Girmachew seeks to capture the universality of lived experience. His paintings abound with human figures, expressed in different colours in celebration of our multiplicity of perspectives, origins, and histories. Much like the German expressionist painters of the early twentieth century, for Girmachew, colour has spiritual significance. The deep golden yellow which blooms in the sunflowers of the Blossoming Mind series, for example, is a symbol of vitality and energy.
The objects themselves also hold symbolic weight – sunflowers are often planted by farmers to cleanse contaminated soil, as they have the ability to absorb toxins and store them on a cellular level. This bears metaphoric parallel to Girmachew’s belief in the cathartic, healing power of the process of artistic creation.
Insects also play a dominant theme throughout Girmachew’s body of work. Bees hover about a flute-playing figure, as if drawn to the nectar of his music. Spindly grasshoppers and reverent praying mantises careen and climb throughout their framed confines –serving as emblems of the might and harmony of the natural world. There is a dynamism to the twisting torsos and flitting critters, which combined with Girmachew’s signature handling of line and brushstroke causes the works to vibrate with energetic lifeforce.
While Girmachew cites his Ethiopian and African roots as a powerful influence in his style, he also weaves in classical motifs from early Egyptian murals and statues, Roman and Greek sculpture, and modern and contemporary figurative painting –furthering the notion of his works as tapestries of interwoven individual and universal histories. In painting, Girmachew is able to transcend the boundaries imposed by time and space, and to offer his viewers the opportunity to experience the beautiful realms of his internal meditations through the externalised worlds of his canvases and cardboards.
Dancing with the Insects, 2022
Acrylic and charcoal, clay pencil on art-cardboard
150 × 108 cm
Sun flower II, 2022
Acrylic and charcoal, clay pencil on art-cardboard
150 × 108 cm
Dancing with the Mantis III, 2021
Acrylic and charcoal, clay pencil on art-cardboard
100 × 80 cm
Dancing with the bees V, 2021
Acrylic and charcoal, clay pencil on art-cardboard
150 × 108 cm
Dancing with the mantis II, 2021
Acrylic and charcoal, clay pencil on art-cardboard
100 × 80 cm
Dancing with the Air, 2021
Acrylic and charcoal, clay pencil on art-cardboard
100 × 80 cm
Dancing with the Stairs I, 2021
Acrylic and charcoal, clay pencil on art-cardboard
100 × 80 cm
In 2016, Rakeb Sile and Mesai Haileleul co-founded Addis Fine Art, creating the first white-cube gallery space for modern and contemporary art in Ethiopia. Described as one of the “Most Important Young Galleries in the World” (Artsy 2019), the gallery has since then grown to become one of the leading galleries in Africa, establishing a prominent international platform for artists from the Horn of Africa.
In October 2021, Addis Fine Art London moved into expanded premises in Eastcastle Street, opening a two-storey gallery space in the heart of Fitzrovia. The London gallery programme will encapsulate Addis Fine Art’s commitment to heightened international exposure for, and critical reappraisal of, African art on the world stage. The gallery’s Addis Ababa space will continue to be an incubator for emerging talent, facilitating critical engagement within the local market and encouraging the growth and development of the artworld ecosystem on the continent. The gallery will also serve as a space for artists from the diaspora to return to the continent and share and develop their practice.
Published by Addis Fine Art on the occasion of Girmachew Getnet, In Between I
13 September – 1 October 2022
Addis Fine Art
21 Eastcastle Street
London W1W 8DD
© 2022 Addis Fine Art
Credits:
Kate Kirby
Ikenna Malbert
All images © 2022 Addis Gezehagn
Text © 2022 Kate Kirby
Photography by Lucy Emms
All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of Addis Fine Art
Designed by Lucy Harbut
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