Wosene Worke Kosrof
TRANS/FORMS, Recent Paintings
Skoto Gallery
529 West 20 Street, Fifth Floor
New York City
212 352 8058
October 19- November 25, 2006
By MIRIAM BRUMER
Wosene Worke Kosrof Migrations II 2006
acrylic on canvas, 46 x 51 inches
COVER December 2006: Word Play III 2006, acrylic on canvas, 25x24 inches
Courtesy Skoto Gallery
Combining the dynamic calligraphy of Amharic, one of the major modern Ethiopian languages, with the formal devices of Western modernism, and other cultural symbols, the Ethiopian-born artist Wosene Worke Kosrof (the artist prefers to be called by his first name) sets up an energetic tempo in his lively paintings. Semi-abstracted calligraphic forms and landscape fragments noisily jostle each other in an intensely lit painted environment.
Wosene has lived outside of Ethiopia since the late 1970s. He has absorbed the calligraphic qualities found in the work of such painters as Paul Klee, Franz Kline, Morris Graves and Jean-Michel Basquiat. But more importantly, Wosene is engaged in an energetic dialogue with his own Ethiopian heritage. In his paintings glowing and searing colors interact with buoyant and gestural calligraphic units. These units are typically used as armatures, visual signposts that invite us to consider the light, space and general ambience of his culture. We are presented with hints; fragments that evoke letters interact with shapes that suggest native artifacts and dwellings. We are led through luminous spaces with these calligraphic and decorative markings serving almost as guides.
In Word Play III, assertive units of black calligraphic markings gracefully stride and slice across a white ground. Behind and around them, linear signs and symbols dart in and out. Here, the characters suggest letters and allude to his language while, at the same time they serve to set up spatial divisions. The whole is arranged in a cubistic format that is used in many of his paintings, and as our eye moves back and forth through the space, we discern house- and mosque-like images, with textures and symbols also visible on and near them. Stippled areas and decorative linear markings insinuate themselves into this harmonious community of primarily blacks and whites. Colors emerge from surfaces; suggesting an intensely lit and glowing ambience. A strategically placed red triangle seems to intervene and act as a pivotal point in the composition. For the Ethiopian viewer, the painting no doubt communicates specific cultural and linguistic references For others, the picture reads as a vibrant visual message that keeps our eyes busy and mind interested. The whole canvas is active but it is also a coherent road map with articulated parts.
Wosene’s paintings present us with the often considered, always tantalizing, and never adequately answered question: how essential is our understanding of the references found in a painting to our full appreciation of the work? Indeed, a solid grasp of Eastern religions enhances one’s grasp of the paintings of Morris Graves. A familiarity with Mexican children’s art adds some dimensions to our appreciation of Klee. Knowing the special quirks of life in New York is certainly vital to a full engagement with the work of Saul Steinberg. But without even knowing that Clyfford Still was inspired by the landscape of the American southwest or that Basquiat’s work derived much of its raw vigor from graffiti, we are nevertheless gripped by the immediacy and compelling impact of their respective visual images. I would guess that even a viewer, totally unfamiliar with New York, can still revel in the witty linear gymnastics of a Steinberg drawing. Furthermore, the profusion of ingeniously varied and engaging signs and symbols to be found there may even induce a foreigner to want to get to know the city better.
So it is with Wosene’s complex and totally engaging painted worlds. A dancing brush, a glisteningly fresh palette, a vital and varied linear vocabulary -- all of these elegantly orchestrated – beckon us to journey into a painted world which manages to combine the pleasure of picture-making with a multiplicity of personal symbols.
