Love Letters to Addisalem: Kaleab Abate

At the heart of Kaleab Abate’s debut solo exhibition is Addisalem, a fictional female character whose name means ‘new world’ in Amharic. The Addis Ababa-born artist invents Addisalem as a way of expressing his feelings towards the rapid change taking place in his city. His artworks in this exhibition are intimate expressions of love and longing, through which he explores the growing distance between the Addis Ababa he remembers and the one taking shape around him.

Addisalem is the soul of city: the neighbourhood café where conversations once unfolded, the streets that hold traces of childhood, the gathering places that have disappeared and the familiar rhythms of a city that no longer feels the same. Both an imagined lover and a reflection of the city, she gives a human presence to something that is constantly changing, allowing Abate to explore his connection to Addis Ababa through something deeply personal.

With his heavily layered screen prints, fragmented figures and forms, playful juxtapositions and handwritten notes, Abate draws on personal memories, fragments of history and details of everyday life in the city. Familiar scenes and images appear in unexpected ways, sometimes slipping into something almost surreal. There is a sense of moving between different moments in time, much like the way memories overlap and distort as we look back.

His works carry affection, frustration, nostalgia and grief in equal measure. Beneath the longing is a real sense of loss, but also an enduring attachment to the city and the memories held within it.

There is something almost like heartbreak in Abate’s relationship with Addis Ababa, and in the question that runs through the work: who am I without the city I know? Without the streets, places and everyday encounters that have shaped my sense of who I am?

Curated by Lara Buchmann.