<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>Later, around 1966, after seeing Christmas\nflowers painted by his friend and the well-known Ethiopian modern painter\nTadesse Mesfin, Lulseged tried to develop his artistic skills by depicting his\nfriend’s paintings again. He confesses that doing this helped him be more\ninterested in painting. From 1971 to 1976, Lulseged Retta studied at the Addis\nAbaba School of Fine Arts and graduated in painting. During the 1980s, he\ntraveled to the former Soviet Union to study fine art at the Repin Art Academy\nin Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), where he received his MFA with honors. He\nsaid that he was the first student in the academy to be authorized to study in\nall fine arts fields. <\/o:p><\/span><\/p>After he graduated from the Addis Ababa School\nof Fine Arts, he worked at the Hager Fiker Theatre, serving as a stage designer\nand as a head of the art section from 1977 to 1979, and after returning from\nthe former Soviet Union, he worked at the Ethiopian Tourist Business Trading\nEnterprise (ETTE) as a head of the art department from 1987 to 1996 and as a\nSenior Artist for production in the Technical Division as well as head of the\nCommercial Art Department from 1995 to 1996. <\/o:p><\/span><\/p>Lulseged\nis a strong artist who has succeeded despite many setbacks. This personality\nhas enabled him to create a unique artistic world and identity. Content-wise,\nhe merges indigenous knowledge with traditional thoughts in his paintings.\nRegarding form, he is an experimental artist who paints by mixing traditional\nstyle with the modern philosophy of painting. Lulseged has developed his\nartistic language by fusing Ethiopian traditional style with modern conception.<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>Lulseged’s\nartistic works attempt to depict gender bias in Ethiopia as a result of the\nlong-lasting patriarchal culture, in which girls and women were often afraid to\nexpress their feelings openly due to the influence of culture and cultural\ntaboos. He expresses this using his visual language, like the large and oval\neye shapes in the paintings of women, which can communicate lots of secrets\nnonverbally. Historically, the depiction of expressive and exaggerated eyes has\nbeen a longstanding artistic practice in Ethiopian traditional art. Lulseged\nhas mixed this with modern style to create his own artistic touch, which is the\ndominant feature of his paintings.<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>Lulseged\nRetta is a modern and contemporary artist who has been a hardworking painter\nfrom his schooldays to maturity. He has been working tirelessly to find his own\nartistic taste. Moreover, he is an artist whose name is mentioned among the\nprominent Ethiopian painters. He is a plastic artist who has a great love for\nhis profession and music, which is part and parcel of pictorial compositions.<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>In a time\nwhere everyone is running after their interests, Lulseged has made a great\ncontribution by going beyond his own interests by creating a group exhibition\nformed by eight painters for the first time. The exhibition was named\n“Merge.” He organized the exhibition with the purpose of supporting\nand motivating other artists. As such, Lulseged is considered a successful\nartist who fulfills great social and professional responsibilities. His\ncontribution to the establishment of the Art of Ethiopia in Sheraton is\nparamount. He worked diligently for twelve years as an organizer of the\n“Art of Ethiopia” annual exhibition that was held at the Sheraton\nAddis every year from 2008\u20132019. His continued and fruitful participation in\nsuch artistic events has greatly benefited Ethiopian contemporary painters and\nour country’s art community.<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/p>
The\nlandmark of his long experience in art came as early as 1977, when Lulseged\nparticipated in a group exhibition together with the prominent Ethiopian modern\npainter and poet Gebre Kristos and other artists. Since that historical\nexhibition, he has displayed his works in many private and group exhibitions in\ndifferent galleries in the country and abroad. In short, Lulseged Retta is\nconsidered one of the top names in Ethiopian modern and contemporary art.<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lulseged is someone who possesses great confidence in himself and is a person who never gives up in the face of defeat. Lulseged Retta was born in Addis Ababa in 1953. When he was a student at Kelemework School, he frequently won first and second…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6407,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[27,28,30],"class_list":["post-5907","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-history","tag-art","tag-artist","tag-exhibition"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abrakartgallery.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5907","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abrakartgallery.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abrakartgallery.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abrakartgallery.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abrakartgallery.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5907"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/abrakartgallery.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5907\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6408,"href":"https:\/\/abrakartgallery.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5907\/revisions\/6408"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abrakartgallery.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abrakartgallery.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abrakartgallery.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abrakartgallery.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}