Sullivan Goss will host a new solo exhibit of abstract paintings for Ethiopian-born painter Wosene Worke Kosrof, July 31-Sept. 21, with an opening reception, 5-8 p.m. on 1st Thursday, Aug. 6. Wosene will be present at the 1st Thursday reception at 11 E. Anapamu St., Santa Barbara.
Since the gallery’s last exhibit, Wosene’s works have been added to nine museum collections. He is now in 30 public collections, and his 2022 monograph, “WOSENE: Beyond Words,” is becoming a rare book as new copies have almost run out, Sullivan Goss said.
The artist himself would be entitled to look back on his achievements with pride, but instead he continues to work quietly and persistently up in Berkeley, California, gallery organizers said. Still, it’s fair for any 70-something-year-old to look back, gallery they said.
In that spirit, the gallery will exhibit 13 recent paintings and one important painting from the first series of the artist’s career called “Midnight Improv.”
Painted in 1987, “Midnight Improv” is part of his Graffiti Magic series, a body of work that grew out of his Master of Fine Arts thesis show at Howard University in 1980.
At that time, Wosene’s signature use of Amharic script in “all-over” abstract painting was new to the world, but he saw analogs in the wild-style train graffiti he saw on occasional trips to New York.
“Midnight Improv” will provide a new layer of context to a body of work Wosene has painted over the last six years. Most were painted over the last year.
The layering of Amharic characters in fields of paint that are built up with gestures and shapes have always suggested layers of meaning.
“Looking at Wosene’s paintings can feel like listening to music, where rhythmic structure allows for passages of improvisation, but it can also feel like excavation,” organizers said.
Amharic script is more than 2,000 years old, and Wosene’s abstract painting language has been evolving for 46 years.
“You have to dig around in the abstraction to get a sense of how meaning can build up through a creative process driven by intuition and experimentation,” the gallery said.
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