Sullivan Goss is excited to announce the gallery’s first solo exhibition for contemporary artist WOSENE WORKE KOSROF. Born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Wosene was a rising star in his home country before emigrating to the United States to attend Howard University, where he received his MFA in 1980. Now based in Berkeley, CA Wosene’s work has achieved international acclaim and is recognized worldwide for its use of Ethiopia’s Amharic script as a central formal element in his abstract compositions. 

This recognizable signature emerges from the way he elongates, distorts, dissects and reassembles Amharic calligraphy – not as literal words – but as images that speak for themselves in a visual language accessible to international audiences. This visual motif serves as a suggestion of meaning, but like the forms themselves the meaning is abstracted, planting the seed of our initial experience of the work, but actively refusing to provide simplistic interpretation. The repetition of these formal elements within individual pieces and across the artist’s body of work creates a visual rhythm that Wosene disrupts towards his unique creative purpose. There is beauty in this subversion, as there is in the syncopation of his beloved jazz music. Wosene’s creative warping of the Amarhic script removes any requirement of understanding its original meaning, and instead, like music, aims to evoke a more universal experience.