Tiemar Tegene: Shertan Weha / ሸርጣን ውሀ: Circle Art Gallery

Tiemar Tegene (Ethiopian, b. 1994)

SHERTAN WEHA / ሸርጣን ውሀ

A solo exhibition at Circle Art Gallery, Nairobi, 14 Sept – 14 Oct, 2023

Lives and works in Addis Ababa

Tiemar Tegene’s works are anchored in her training as a printmaker, expanding etching processes into monoprinting through spontaneous experiments, most often using household items and their textures. Rather than producing numbered editions struck from the same plate, each work falls outside of fixed description as Tegene finds new ways to press the texture of an image through the application of ink onto the page. Additions of coloured pencil forge repeating icons and patterns, becoming increasingly abstracted whilst adding layers of personal narratives.

Channelling an intimate and complex response to the world around her, Tegene’s compositions are transmutations of her emotional experiences and the nature of her relationships with others. Inside these images live the details and echoes of larger stories, whether relayed in confidence by a friend, overheard on the street, or drawn from song lyrics or film. Consolidating ‘real’ details with flourishes of reference and imagination, her portraiture reaches for specific and consuming emotional moments, that ripple through the body and space.

Tegene received a BFA in Printmaking from the Allé School of Fine Arts & Design in Addis Ababa.

Solo exhibitions include Mirror Mirror on the Wall, Whose the Darkest of them All? 2025, AKINCI Gallery in Amsterdam, Questioned and Assured Existence, 2025, Modern Art Museum Gebre Kristos Desta Center in Addis Ababa, Memories from that Night, 2024, Gallery Dotwalk in Delhi NCR, and the very successful Shertan Weha, 2023, Circle Art Gallery in Nairobi, as well as a series of public murals commissioned in the city of Addis Ababa.

Group exhibitions include Christin x Art Gallery in Malta, Mitochondria Gallery in Houston, the Lithuanian National Museum of Art, and James Fuentes Art Gallery in New York. Tegene has exhibited in various international art fairs such as Africa Basel 2025, Art Rotterdam 2025, Cape Town Art Fair 2024, and 1-54 Contemporary Art Fair in London, 2023. Tegene’s work is in various collections, including the Foundation Gandur pour l’Art in Geneva, the IIZIKO National Gallery South Africa, Africa First Collection, Kamita Art Collection, Schwartzman and Associates Collection and The African Arts Trust Collection.