Ethiopian Pavilion

Tesfaye Urgessa was born in 1983 and lives and works in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Urges-sa studied under modern master Tadesse Mesfin in Ethiopia, and later graduated from the Staatlichen Akademie in Stuttgart. Through these experiences, Urgessa was able to connect Ethiopian iconography and a deep fascination with traditional figurative paint-ing to create a unique and striking language. His classical figurations with their writh-ing bodies create distorted psychological tension hidden in domestic settings. Urgessa’s subject matter recalls intertwined representations of race and the politics of identity.