Adiskidan Ambaye: Liberty
08 April 2020
Magazine C& Magazine
1 min read
For Adiskidan Ambaye, sculpture and drawing are deeply interwoven. The abstract sculptures she produces are nearly always preceded by gestural two-dimensional works, which delineate the foundations for her three-dimensional compositions. The wooden sculptures appear moulded from a single block of wood but are actually composed of as many as sixty handcrafted smaller slices of plywood. The ringed markings …
For Adiskidan Ambaye, sculpture and drawing are deeply interwoven. The abstract sculptures she produces are nearly always preceded by gestural two-dimensional works, which delineate the foundations for her three-dimensional compositions.
The wooden sculptures appear moulded from a single block of wood but are actually composed of as many as sixty handcrafted smaller slices of plywood. The ringed markings orbiting the surface of each segment represent an individual piece fused to form the whole. Ambaye has described this process as sculpting “from the inside out”. These cyclical markings also conjure images of the naturally occurring concentric circles found in trees, signifying age, and life and death, as they are only visible once the tree has been cut down.
Installation view of Liberty by Adiskidan Ambaye at Addis Fine Art gallery, Addis Ababa, 2020. Photo by Eyerusalem Jiregna.
Installation view of Liberty by Adiskidan Ambaye at Addis Fine Art gallery, Addis Ababa, 2020. Photo by Eyerusalem Jiregna.
Embrace II, installation view of Liberty by Adiskidan Ambaye at Addis Fine Art gallery, Addis Ababa, 2020. Photo by Eyerusalem Jiregna.
Installation view of Liberty by Adiskidan Ambaye at Addis Fine Art gallery, Addis Ababa, 2020. Photo by Eyerusalem Jiregna.
Installation view of Liberty by Adiskidan Ambaye at Addis Fine Art gallery, Addis Ababa, 2020. Photo by Eyerusalem Jiregna.
Installation view of Liberty by Adiskidan Ambaye at Addis Fine Art gallery, Addis Ababa, 2020. Photo by Eyerusalem Jiregna.
Installation view of Liberty by Adiskidan Ambaye at Addis Fine Art gallery, Addis Ababa, 2020. Photo by Eyerusalem Jiregna.
Shield, Installation view of Liberty by Adiskidan Ambaye at Addis Fine Art gallery, Addis Ababa, 2020. Photo by Eyerusalem Jiregna.
Installation view of Liberty by Adiskidan Ambaye at Addis Fine Art gallery, Addis Ababa, 2020. Photo by Eyerusalem Jiregna.
Liberty, installation view of Liberty by Adiskidan Ambaye at Addis Fine Art gallery, Addis Ababa, 2020. Photo by Eyerusalem Jiregna.
Installation view of Liberty by Adiskidan Ambaye at Addis Fine Art gallery, Addis Ababa, 2020. Photo by Eyerusalem Jiregna.
Solitude, installation view of Liberty by Adiskidan Ambaye at Addis Fine Art gallery, Addis Ababa, 2020. Photo by Eyerusalem Jiregna.
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