Tegene Kunbi Ethiopia, b. 1980

Tegene Kunbi (Lives and works in Berlin) completed a Painting and Art Education degree at the Fine Arts School, University of Addis Ababa, in 2004. 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 Degree in 2011. The artist considers colour as a vocabulary to give voice to aspects of his heritage. Kunbi creates compositions of different geometric shapes, colours, landscape and fabrics to create surfaces of vibrant textures and layers. 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 he conveys the dynamism and complexities within personal experience and that of his community.