Tegene Kunbi – Warp and Weft

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Comunicato stampa

Born in 1980 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, TEGENE KUNBI completed a Painting and Art Education degree at the Fine Arts School at the University of Addis Abeba in 2004 and went on to teach at Kotebe College Academy. 
Kunbi is the winner of the Main Prize Grand Prix Léopold Sédar Senghor at Dak’Art Biennale 2022
The artist received this prestigious award directly from Macky Sall, the President of the Republic of Senegal, at the opening of the 14th Biennial of Contemporary African Art 2022.
With the help of the prestigious DAAD scholarship, he left Ethiopia in 2008 to study at the Universität der Künste Berlin, where he obtained a Master of Fine Arts in 2011. He has been part of multiple group and solo exhibitions in Germany and abroad as well as collaborative international projects and workshops, for example in Paris, Casablanca, New York, Nairobi, Nouakchott, and Amsterdam.
 
"Colour is a vocabulary I use to give voice to aspects of my cultural heritage. Each hue is a conversation with the next, producing a sense of harmony and tension. Tonality, density and the rectilinear grid are also an integral part of the work. 
Through this language I convey the dynamism and complexities within my personal experience and that of my community. 
The underlying structure of the paintings repeats across a large body of work. This warp and weft is intrinsic to that of the Ethiopian textiles used in religious ceremonies that are at once inspiration source and more recently a material within the works. This aesthetic framework is reinforced and challenged all at once throughout the painting process which in itself is a ritual and also fight to reclaim a form of spirituality".

- Tegene Kunbi