Addisu Negera (b. 2002, Ethiopia) is an emerging artist known for his portraiture and nature studies. Trained at Abyssinia School of Arts Later joined Addis Ababa School of Fine Arts and design, Addis Ababa University, he combines technical skill with a distinctive artistic voice. His work reflects a thoughtful exploration of identity within Ethiopia's contemporary art scene.
My work is an ongoing dialogue with myself a search for identity, meaning, and healing through the earth that shaped me. I sculpt with red soil, a material deeply tied to Ethiopian homes, memory, and loss. Mixed with hay gathered from houses demolished in the name of "development," these materials carry the weight of displacement, collective history, and personal trauma.
Each piece begins as a question: Why do I exist? What is my purpose? These existential voids emerge in moments of sorrow, when I think of family, of fractured pasts, of the silent wounds we inherit. My sculptures become my confidant’s forms I speak to, shapes that hold my unspoken fears and hopes.
Through this process, I examine the subconscious linguistic and psychological shifts that occur when trauma transforms into expression. The red soil, once structure, now becomes script unexpected, unbound, a language without rules. It is both a lament and reclamation, tying my solitude to the shared psyche of Ethiopians who know this earth, this erosion, this resilience.