Kidane Getaw (b. 1994) was born and raised in Addis Abeba. He used to try to reproduce diverse pictures from posters as a child. To further his objectives, he enrolls in basic drawing and painting classes at Abyssinia Fine Art School, where he graduated in 2013. Kidane continued his studies at Teferi Mekonin Art School for three years, receiving his certificate in 2017, after which he completed his studies at Addis Ababa University's Ale School of Fine Arts and Design, graduating with a BA in painting in 2021. Kidane has actively participated in several artistic programs and has held several group shows during the previous six years.
Artist Statement
Ideas and images from our experience of dreams and nightmares are usually amassed in the subconscious. These images and ideas could be sheer depictions of our real and day to day activities. They could also be exceled representations of our realities and thoughts. Either both or other ways, the images or ideas manifest in our dreams and nightmares are the results of the ongoing functions of our sleepless mind processing various types of information while the body is at rest. The processing of the information may create jumbled images that could be unknown, strange or new to our conscious and knowledge. The complexities and nuances of dreams and nightmares could also greatly influence the thoughts and deeds in our daily life. Consequently, people could sometimes become unable to figure out the fine lines between their reality and their dreams and/or nightmares. Our dreams and nightmares are also the means to anticipate what could potentially happen next in our (daily) life.
The links between the realities of daily life and with what our psych encounters during dreams and nightmares is the starting point of my works. I attempt to capture the mystiques of interactions in what I or other people could possibly experience in a nightmare or dream. I believe that this is one way to conceivably interact with what the human psych bids. My desire in my current body of works “Exhausting Nightmares” is to unleash the gamut of dreams and nightmares in relation to the multitudes of the encounters in our daily life. Most importantly, my works recurrently aspire to draw attention towards religious accounts that are usually epitomized and incarnated in our contemporary life situations.
Kidane Getaw (January 2024, Addis Abeba, Ethiopia)
