Female figures are always a fixture in her work – a representation of strength and embodiment of a powerful womanly icon. With visual elements that feel grounded in a mythological world, Berrio produces stunning collages that transport the viewer into a dream state. Atnafu indeed witnessed, if only from the side lines, this exciting and stimulating.Maria Berrio‘s work reflects the traditions of South American folklore. ![]() It was a time when the vast spectrum of the Ethiopian art world was engaged in exploring its artistic heritage, using it to define and authenticate its aspirations for a modern idiom of expression. Atnafu came of age in the Ethiopia of the late 1960s and early 1970s, a particularly vibrant period in the intellectual history of the country, one which gave birth to the dialogue over Ethiopian art, literature, and culture that has since defined the national discourse on culture. ![]() Her father was a self-taught painter and a furniture maker, and her sister Katsala Atnafu, a practicing artist now living in Addis Ababa, was one of the first women to enroll in the Addis Ababa School of Fine Art in 1959.2 Yet, it is important to stress that Atnafu's mastery of technique and her sophisticated use of color are qualities which she acquired only through rigorous training and experimentation. However, Atnafu's success need not come as a surprise, since she belongs to a family of traditional painters and art lovers. It is a tradition that is still passed down from father to son. church painting) was long the exclusive preserve of males, primarily monks and priests, that her gender becomes a point of interest. Atnafu is one of the few young women within the male-dominated world of contemporary Ethiopian art to have been active since the mid-1970s, and to achieve international success.1 It is only when we realize that the pictorial tradition (i.e. This complex visual heritage, along with the experience of exile and diaspora, have combined to produce a powerful impact on Atnafu's aesthetics, and to inspire her artistic vision. Ethiopia's long, uninterrupted history of pictorial art includes manuscript illuminations, church murals, mobile panels, and magnificent processional crosses. Sculpture and architectural traditions abound in monasteries and churches from Debra Damu to Degum and Zerema. can certainly claim a rich heritage of ancient artistic and architectural achievements. Like other Ethiopian artists, she has shared the destiny of exile and mass exodus to the West. Fall/winter 1996 Ethiopians of her generation, her present life is indelibly marked with memories of loss and dislocation, but also with nostalgia for the glorious past.Like other Journal of Contemporary African Art For her, it is almost an integral part of her tradition. C, Atnafu is no stranger to migration and diaspora. Her work is the l| i n n i u product of a rich heritage and a wealth of experience l i n u u H n derived from her formative years in Ethiopia in the 1970s, in the turbulent atmosphere that characterized that country prior to the revolution, and further strengthened by the diasporic experience of her subsequent years. Atnafu's art reflects such qualities and more. For Atnafu, art evokes memory and contemplates the glory of the past meets the present while yet shaping the future. ![]() Such is the spirit of Atnafu, who likes to carry her world of dreams and to travel within the depths of her own being. They are sources of vision and an inspiration for her artwork. Dreams provide her with a rich means of interpreting and reinterpreting the world and recreating it in her own image. It is the hybrid postmodern world of an Ethiopian woman who grew up in Addis Ababa, immersed as a child in a mythical Old Testament n i i i M world ruled by King Solomon and the Queen of u H L H 11 Sheba, who was later to relocate and fit so well into the post-industrial environment of New York and Washington D.C., where she has lived for more than two decades. In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:ĪRT AS RITUAL IN THE WDRK DF ELSABETH TARIQUA ATNAFU Elsabeth Tariqua Atnafu's art is created out of a hybrid world of wildly disparate elements, textured surfaces, and dazzling colors borne on huge canvases covered with brilliant colors and a mosaiclike accumulation of paint, creating an almost hypnotic visual impact of psychedelic effect.
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