The Collection

Tiemar Tegene is a printmaker whose practice expands traditional etching through experimental monoprinting, drawing, and mixed media. Trained at the Allé School of Fine Arts and Design in Addis Ababa, where she earned a BFA in Printmaking, Tegene works beyond the conventions of editioned prints, producing singular works that emphasize process, texture, and improvisation. Using household objects and their surfaces alongside ink, paint, and colored pencil, she develops layered compositions in which repeating icons and patterns become increasingly abstracted.

Tegene’s work is deeply informed by personal narrative and emotional experience. Her compositions function as transmutations of relationships, memory, and interior states, drawing from stories shared by friends, overheard conversations, song lyrics, and film. By consolidating observed reality with imaginative references, her portraits inhabit a space between the real and the imagined, capturing fleeting yet consuming emotional moments that resonate through both body and space. The addition of colored pencil introduces rhythm and intimacy, reinforcing the psychological depth of her imagery.

Her work has been exhibited widely in Ethiopia and internationally. Tegene has presented solo and dual exhibitions including We Belong to Time at Circle Art Gallery (2025); Mirror Mirror on the Wall, Who’s the Darkest of Them All? at AKINCI Gallery, Amsterdam (2025); Questioned and Assured Existence at the Modern Art Museum Gebre Kristos Desta Center, Addis Ababa (2025); Memories from That Night at Gallery Dotwalk, Delhi NCR (2024); and Shertan Weha at Circle Art Gallery, Nairobi (2023). She has also exhibited with Circle Art Gallery at the 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair in London and participated in group exhibitions at institutions and galleries including the Lithuanian National Museum of Art, James Fuentes Gallery in New York, Mitochondria Gallery in Houston, and Christine X Art Gallery in Malta.

Tegene has shown work at major international art fairs including 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair (London, 2023 and 2025), Africa Basel (2025), Cape Town Art Fair (2024), Art Rotterdam (2025), and is scheduled to participate in Expo Chicago with Circle Art Gallery in 2026. Her work is held in several public and private collections, including the Fondation Gandur pour l’Art, Geneva; IZIKO National Gallery of South Africa; Africa First Collection; Kamita Art Collection; Schwartzman and Associates Collection; and The African Arts Trust Collection.