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Ethiopia: Paintings Are Like Poems
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The Reporter (Addis Ababa)
22 December 2007
Posted to the web 24 December 2007
Yelibenwork Ayele
Addis Ababa
All the 38 paintings by Robel Berhane at the exhibition staged Wednesday at the Hilton Addis were titled "Searching for Identity". "I was searching for the Ethiopian identity of sympathy and respect for one another" Robel said.
The paintings were portraits of women in Ethiopian dresses.
It would be good if paintings were always left untitled, Robel argued. They are not for a one-time observation. "Paintings are usually expensive. Therefore, people who buy them at high prices, do not buy them just to hang them on walls and use them as decoration".
Paintings are not like some photos which you take in at once and never see again, Robel explained. One looks at painting now and then, and over and over and over, discovering new meanings each time.
The painter likened painting to poems. "You read a poem again and again as if it is new every time you read it. If you do not understand it well the first time, you may not easily find the poet to explain it to you. So, by reading it repeatedly you associate it with your experience and knowledge and interprete it."
The question posed in a few articles in this newspaper was put to Robel. If an artist paints, putting his ideas, feelings or message in it, but the audience fails to see it, has the artist succeeded in communicating with the audience? Or, putting it in another way, if the audience is given the liberty to make private interpretations of a work of art, would that not entail upon the artist the risk of being misunderstood?
"As an artist, I should not dictate to you what you must read in my work," answered Robel, the full time artist. "An individual can freely interprete a painting the way he pleases".
There is unlimited freedom in art. A bucket of paint may be splashed on a board and become a painting, said Robel.
Then such a painting, made with no idea conceived behind it, springing out of no thought, how can it be compared with prose or verse, in which careful choice of words is made though, sometimes, the flow of idea may be spontaneous especially in the case of poems? What purpose does such freedom serve?
"There is no such thing as an unclear painting." If you go to an art exhibition thinking you won't understand paintings, then you won't understand. But if you come thinking you will understand, then you will understand".
There is nothing unearthly about paintings, Robel explains. Everything, color and pattern are related to what one finds in the world. For example, if you find wavy lines in a painting, you may associate those with ripples on the surface of water. Or a vertical line could be compared to, why not, with the very journalist interviewing who stood upright while he interviewed Robel.
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Robel graduated from the Addis Ababa University, six years ago. He was a martial arts teacher before becoming a full-time painter. He has earned a diploma in graphic designing.
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