My artistic interest dates back to my childhood days but it remained unexpressed until recently. I have always been a keen observer of and fascinated by the human drama which unfolds around me. Although the urge to share my sense of the mystery of our existence and behavior, its undiluted uniqueness and unfettered convention, has been present with me for a long time, I had to wait until it spontaneously burst out of me.
My paintings incorporate the fusion of experiences, observation, influences and contemplation spanning my entire life. Growing up in my native Ethiopia, my childhood imagination was always moved by the ragged lines, the warm colors, the expressive eyes, and the stories told by ancient religious paintings in the churches.
The silent contention between good and evil was powerfully expressed in simple patterns and symbols. The motifs, the call and the ritual were slowly submerged and imprinted in the recesses of my subconscious mind. There were also many anonymous priests with whom I connected, not through personal acquaintance but momentary glances.
I have drawn a lot of inspiration, if not much direct artistic influence, from such Ethiopian artists as Skunder Boghassian, Gebre Kiristos Desta and Fasil Dawit. My influences and inspiration are broad based. It could be as simple as a gesture and complicated as human behavior. It could be jazz music or theater. It could be a form or an expression. It could be rhythm and improvisation or emotion and movement. I am faces, concepts, and cultures. I am memories and characters. I am mirrors and whispers. I am movements, journeys and crossroads. I shiver and tremble when I see something greater than life. I am in constant search of places, people and things. I am in search of ideas.
My everyday experience is like a dance in my mind and this visual dance in my mind unfolds a form. That form, from one moment to another, becomes endless compositions. I reflect my roots, I reflect moments as they suggest to me. I am a storyteller in color and I am always ready with pregnant thoughts of moments, cultures and nature. I am vast concepts and ideas of human nature and behavior. I am thoughts that are about humanity. Thoughts of freedom, pain, struggle, life, humility, fate and thoughts of strength and love. I stand intertwined with the suspended time and space, willingly listening and looping myself with symbols, myths, color, movement, shapes, rhythm and forms.
My artistic interest will always make me an explorer. I am a gypsy who tries to tell eyeful stories by means of color, brush strokes, movements, shapes and characters. These stories visualize and portray my story, the stories of the Africans, the stories of the Americans and the stories of the world.
Glance at the journey that has made the strong spiritual images into a visual force. It intertwines the spirit of creation and myself into a tapestry that both precedes and extends beyond our brief lives. I propagate afresh the craft handed down to me through the forces of colorful dialogue. I have immersed myself in a journey of vastness and depth to form a window of imagination, to be one with the music of nature. I coalesce and confirm the illusion but reality is illusion and illusion reality.
