Artist Database

Tegene Kunbi was born in 1980 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. He is a contemporary painter whose work investigates issues of place, politics, and the nature of abstraction. Kunbi’s practice also demonstrates his study and analysis of painting history. Formally educated in the Western European and Russian academic tradition of realism, his work looks to break down notions of landscape through a painterly and abstracted understanding of material, colour, and the notion of nostalgia to test the limitations of visual representation.

Kunbi received his BFA from the University of Addis Ababa in 2004. He continued his education at the Universitȁt der Künste Berlin, Germany. In 2022, he was awarded the Léopold Sédar Senghor prize from the President of the Republic as part of his participation in the Dakar Biennale. He has held solo exhibitions at Bode in Berlin (2023); Barbara Thumm in Berlin (2022); Primo Marella Gallery in Milan (2022); Circle Art Gallery in Nairobi (2019), among others. He has also participated in group exhibitions at CH HILL in Stockholm (2021); SAVVY Contemporary in Berlin (2021); and Margaret Thatcher Projects in New York (2020). Kunbi currently lives and works in Berlin.

Image courtesy of Latitudes Online.