Lot Essay
Wosene Worke Kosrof has pioneered the use of Amharic script as a core element of his work. These letters are not literal, but distorted, reassembled and reconstituted as images and as a visual language accessible to international audiences. In this way his work leans into and draws upon the richness of the Amharic calligraphic tradition without requiring fluency in his viewers. In an interesting counterpoint to Kosrof’s largely text-based work is the fact that his own mother was illiterate.
Music, particularly jazz, comprises another important influence upon Kosrof’s work. Jazz scales and improvisations underlie his compositions, animating them with rhythmic movements and emboldening his use of colour.
Beauty of your own IV features bold strokes of calligraphic lines, which seem to swirl in enigmatic motion as if they are about to come together to form a powerful and ancient symbol.
Born in Ethiopia, Wosene Worke Kosrof lives and works in Berkeley, California, having trained first at SFA Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and then in 1980 as a Ford Foundation Talent Scholar at Howard University, Washington, D.C. His work is held in the permanent collections of the National Museum of Ethiopia, Addis Ababa, the Völkerkundemuseum der Universität Zürich, Zürich, and the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, Washington, D.C.
Music, particularly jazz, comprises another important influence upon Kosrof’s work. Jazz scales and improvisations underlie his compositions, animating them with rhythmic movements and emboldening his use of colour.
Beauty of your own IV features bold strokes of calligraphic lines, which seem to swirl in enigmatic motion as if they are about to come together to form a powerful and ancient symbol.
Born in Ethiopia, Wosene Worke Kosrof lives and works in Berkeley, California, having trained first at SFA Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and then in 1980 as a Ford Foundation Talent Scholar at Howard University, Washington, D.C. His work is held in the permanent collections of the National Museum of Ethiopia, Addis Ababa, the Völkerkundemuseum der Universität Zürich, Zürich, and the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, Washington, D.C.