Silence’s colorful rhythm

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia – Aby Yalew Assefa combined music with paint to showcase his work at  Kabu Café and Restaurant on Tuesday April 17th 2012, with the famous Ethio-Jazz band Wudassie that gave a moving, live performance. “Fusing paint with music is different and creates a “Rhythm of Silence”, the theme of the show; even silence makes a sound, everything is connected, and I wanted the audience to hear the sounds of the paintings,” Aby said.

The realistic paintings use color and light to impress the audience.

“I usually focus on landscape, which is what I’m known for. I like painting about identity and people’s relationship with nature,” he added.

The 38 year old Artist Aby Yalew was greatly influenced by his father who is also an artist. He began painting as a child, graduated from Addis Ababa University School of Fine Arts in 1997 and then went to Kenya to further his studies. He has been painting for almost 15 years and says he is influenced by artist Tadesse Mesfen.

His 27th solo exhibition features 33 oil paintings. “The death of artist Afewerk Tekle is a dark time in the art world. During the time when artistic expression was repressed and was not widely spread, he went through all those difficult situations but he would not compromise his art and he raised the bar for all Ethiopian painters and put our country on the world art scene,” Aby mused.

The exhibition will remain open to the public until May 23.

Source: Capital Ethiopia