<\/o:p><\/span><\/p> <\/span><\/p>She was born in 1953 in\nTigray, northern Ethiopia, and studied under the mentorship of the pioneering\nand well-known Addis Ababa Art School teachers. She was raised, in particular,\nunder the tutelage of the renowned modern Ethiopian painter and poet Gebre\nKristos, who had a significant influence on her paintings, making her one of\nthe few Ethiopian pioneer female artists who dedicated her entire life to art.\nMore importantly, her relationship with the internationally renowned Ethiopian\nmodern artist Gebre Kristos was not only as a student and teacher, but also as\na close friend, professional, and father. \nDesta speaks highly of Gebre Kristos, who gave\nher his personal and professional tools when he left the country he loved and\nimmigrated to a foreign country, and she still especially treasures tools. From\nthis, it is not difficult to understand that all is kept in her sharp memory,\nespecially in her happiest eyes. <\/o:p><\/span><\/span><\/p>With the help\nof her former French high school teacher, her painting was sent to compete in\nthe Shankar International Children’s Art Competition organized by the Indian\nFoundation in 1964. Along with her, a fellow Ethiopian participant, painter,\nand graphic artist Tulu Guya, was named the winner. Right after she joined the\n9th grade, Princess Hirut Desta discovered Desta’s inborn talent for drawing.\nThis paved the way for Desta to study at the Addis Ababa Fine Art School, which\nwas established in 1957 by the well-known modern painter and art educator\nAlefelege Selam. <\/o:p><\/span><\/p>The Creative\nArt Center, which was established in 1963 at the former Haile Selassie I\nUniversity and is now part of the current Addis Ababa University, was an active\nand vibrant artistic platform. Different artistic events, such as theater,\npoetry, music, etc., were performed and attended by prominent Ethiopian modern\ncreative artists such as Gebre Kristos, Behailu Girma, Tsagaye Gebremedhin, and\nothers with great artistic talent and caliber. Desta made attending these types\nof events her much-loved routine every Saturday. Working tirelessly in the\nstudios became Desta’s habit. This hard work paid off when the university gave\nher the privilege to participate in the first young painters’ group exhibition\nthat was held at the Creative Center. The event received wide media coverage at\nthe time.<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>She was the\nonly woman among the women who studied with her to successfully complete her\nstudies and receive a diploma from the Addis Ababa School of Fine Arts in 1969.\nAfter getting a grant to study abroad, she earned a bachelor’s degree in Fine\nArts from California Lutheran University in 1973. She is diligent in her career\nand is known for her work in the field of public relations, serving as the head\nof the Department of the Ethiopian Tourism Trading Enterprise. In addition to\nleaving her mark on the scene of Ethiopian painting, Desta has become a symbol\nof strength for female painters who have followed in her footsteps.<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/p>
Desta, in her long artistic practice and\nexperience since 1970, has participated in different private and group\nexhibitions in Ethiopia and abroad, and her well-experienced visual art has\nreceived national and international recognition. Recently, she was bestowed the\ntitle of Laureate Artist by the current prime minister of Ethiopia. In a\nnutshell, Desta is widely regarded as Ethiopia’s most prominent modern and\ncontemporary female artist. <\/span><\/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":"Desta’s childhood hobby of watching the moon at night with her father, who was a gardener and a music lover, made her experience the joy of taking care of the flowers. She was born in 1953 in Tigray, northern Ethiopia, and studied under the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5847,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[27,28,30],"class_list":["post-5938","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\/5938","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=5938"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/abrakartgallery.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5938\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5943,"href":"https:\/\/abrakartgallery.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5938\/revisions\/5943"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abrakartgallery.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5847"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abrakartgallery.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abrakartgallery.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abrakartgallery.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}