Recent Paintings by Wosene Worke Kosrof

Cosponsored by the Social and Cultural Anthropology Program at CIIS and The Spirits in Stone Galleries

August 28-October 13
CIIS Minna Street Center,
Second Floor

Reception and Dialogue with Wosene Worke Kosrof and
Barbaro Martinez-Ruiz, Artist and Assistant Professor, Stanford University
Friday, September 29, 7–9pm
CIIS Minna Street Center, Second Floor

Wosene Worke Kosrof was born in Ethiopia in 1950 and now resides in Berkeley, California. He was academically trained as a fine artist in both Ethiopia and the United States, and was among the first African contemporary artists to gain critical attention on the international art scene. Wosene's works are included in the permanent collections of numerous museums, and he exhibits regularly in United States and international galleries. Wosene's paintings are based on his fascination with the plasticity of the written word, particularly his native Amharic—one of the world's oldest written languages. He animates his canvases with a pseudo-script that, he says, "is divested of literal meaning and transformed into a visual language that can be understood internationally." For Wosene, Amharic becomes the most resilient means for communicating across the borders of time, place, culture, and nation. His cartographic style reveals how powerfully he wrestles with the experience of cultural belonging and transience.

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