STANDING PINE

Tegene creates compositions of different geometric shapes and colors, which express his personal vision of his native landscape, fabrics, clothes, and wall paintings. Oil and textile combine to create surfaces of vibrant textures and layers of color. A dominant feature in his works is its use of strident and assertive colors. The abstract vertical and horizontal stripes and blocks of color in Kunbi’s paintings nonetheless bear close affinities to the brilliant hues of Ethiopian heritage in Orthodox or Coptic manuscripts, murals and various patterned textiles.

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

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