Labyrinth of Words, 2024 | 46 x 48 inches | acrylic on linen
OPENING RECEPTION: 1st THURSDAY, AUGUST 1, 2024 | FROM 5-8pm
Sullivan Goss is excited to announce its third solo exhibition by internationally renowned contemporary painter, WOSENE WORKE KOSROF. Labyrinth of Words features sixteen new paintings and will be accompanied by a catalog that includes a new essay by Richard B. Woodward, the founding curator of the African Arts Department at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond.
Labyrinth of Words isn’t just an exhibition title; it’s also the name of Wosene’s newest series of paintings. Many of the artist’s most iconic works are visually complex, blending the letter-forms from the biblically-aged Amharic alphabet of his native Ethiopia with abstracted iconography that suggests story-telling. His compositions come out of the “all-over painting” approach to abstraction, which involves filling the whole canvas one passage at a time until the whole thing feels finished and balanced. Finding your way through these passages of color, letter-form, texture, and icon can feel like a maze, but many will experience it as a labyrinth of beauty, mystery, and imagination.
In the past few years, Wosene’s significance as a leading voice in the international discourse on abstract art has become well-established. His work has been featured on the back cover of Pepe Karmel's anthology Abstract Art: A Global Perspective (2020), and in Phaidon's VITAMIN TXT (2024). In 2020, his painting Elemental Coltrane II was featured in the De Young Museum, and in 2022, A Taste for Words X was acquired by the Crocker Museum.
ABOUT THE ARTIST:
Born in 1950 in the Arat Kilo district of Addis Ababa, Wosene formally trained at the Addis Ababa School of Fine Arts, and completed a BFA with distinction in 1972. In the aftermath of a 1974 military coup, Wosene was compelled to leave Ethiopia, eventually enrolling as a Ford Foundation Talent Scholar at Howard University for graduate work in studio painting in 1978. In 1991, he moved from the east coast to California and has been based in Berkeley for many years. Wosene’s work has been exhibited internationally at institutions including the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, Washington DC; the National Museum of Ethiopia, Addis Ababa; the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia; the Crocker Museum, Sacramento; and the Fowler Museum at UCLA, Los Angeles. His work is held in the collections of many important museums. The Crocker Museum of Art in Sacramento was the most recent institution to acquire his work. He has just had his work published in the new VITAMIN TXT: Words in Contemporary Art by Phaidon.
Sullivan Goss will present “Labyrinth of Words,” its third solo exhibit by contemporary painter Wosene Worke Kosrof. The exhibit runs July 26-Sept. 23 at the gallery, 11 E. Anapamu St., Santa Barbara.
The show features 16 new paintings and will be accompanied by a catalog that includes a new essay by Richard B. Woodward, the founding curator of the African Arts Department at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond.
