Portraits of a Nairobi-based artist

On the walls of the Sankara Hotel in Nairobi, Kenya, is an extensive collection of contemporary East African art. Some are the vivid works of Ethiopian-born, Nairobi-based Fitsum Berhe Woldelibanos. He signs his paintings simply as Fitsum.

On his website, Fitsum says that although he had been interested in art from an early age, he undertook it seriously after graduating from the Asmara School of Arts in 2000, where he was enrolled in painting, sculpting, and print making.

His works are mainly portraits – of men and women – with influences based on “architecture and fabric patterns.” Another strong element, he says, is water – the constant motion of the sea, its cycles, and as “our horizontal point of reference.” For example, his strong use of colour stems from inspirations from nature, such as yellows from the Sahara desert: “color talks to me in three dimensional forms.”

It’s not merely the strength of colour that attracts the viewer’s eye to the intensity of his paintings, but it’s also the complementarity and contrast of tones to contour the face that prolongs the gaze. It’s the width and length of line, and the sharp angles that defines the span of the nose, the power of the chin, and the hollows of the cheeks. The brush strokes are amazingly forceful and passionate, extreme and severe, yet also penetrating enough to convey emotion in his portraitures. This emotion is further enhanced in the depth and proportions of the eyes, and the fullness and moistness of the lips. Another aspect that I like is the musculature and erectness of the head, or the tilt downwards or sideways of the face, or the glance of the eyes. But I always return to the colours.

http://fitsumberhe.com

MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of:- The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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