Moment (02)

WENDIMAGEGN BELETE (B. 1986)  

Moment (02)  

signed, titled in Amharic and dated 'Wendimagegn 2019' (on the reverse)  

acrylic, pastel, oil stick, textile and collage on canvas  

70 7/8 x 70 7/8 inches (180 x 180 cm)  

Executed in 2019.

PROVENANCE:  

Private collection, New York

EXHIBITED:  

London, Kristin Hjellegjerde, Wendimagegn Belete: MOMENT “አንዳፍታ” "ANDAFTA", November-December, 2019.

NOTES:  

Born in 1986 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Wendimagegn Belete is a contemporary painter whose richly layered works investigate memory, perception, and the fragmented nature of lived experience. He studied at the Alle School of Fine Arts and Design at Addis Ababa University and the University of Tromsø, Norway, where he developed a multidisciplinary approach that merges painting, collage, textile, and mark-making into densely constructed visual fields. Now based between Ethiopia and Norway, Belete has become known for compositions that blur the boundaries between abstraction and figuration, drawing upon the visual rhythms of urban life, personal recollection, and collective histories. His works often function as emotional and psychological landscapes in which traces of bodies, symbols, and gestures emerge through accumulations of texture and color.

Executed in 2019, Moment (02) exemplifies Belete’s deeply intuitive and materially driven practice. Composed of acrylic, pastel, oil stick, textile, and collage on canvas, the work unfolds as a dynamic constellation of layered forms and expressive surfaces. Fragments of pattern and line appear suspended within a shifting spatial environment, suggesting fleeting impressions or partially remembered encounters. The title itself points toward the transitory nature of perception—a suspended instant rendered through an evolving network of marks, textures, and chromatic tensions.

Belete’s process is inherently accumulative, allowing the canvas to develop through cycles of addition, concealment, and revelation. Textile elements and collage materials introduce tactile complexity while simultaneously referencing histories of labor, domesticity, and cultural production. The work’s expansive square format further immerses the viewer within its pulsating surface, where abstraction becomes a vehicle for emotional resonance rather than pure formalism. Though non-linear in composition, Moment (02) maintains a strong internal rhythm, balancing gestural spontaneity with careful orchestration.

Belete’s work has been exhibited internationally in solo and group presentations throughout Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. His work has been shown at institutions and galleries including the Addis Fine Art Gallery, the African Artists’ Foundation, and Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery, where Moment (02) was exhibited in the artist’s 2019 exhibition MOMENT “አንዳፍታ” ("ANDAFTA"). His paintings have gained increasing international recognition for their materially sophisticated exploration of memory, temporality, and abstraction within contemporary African art.