Aida Muluneh

2021

The photography of Ethiopian born Aida Muluneh habitually consists of a striking powerful figure that often gazes back at you.

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Her chromatic compositions use ancient traditional African culture of associating colours with conceptions of life, Muluneh uses her closely selected colours to represent and confront the past of the continent, showing red-stained bloodied hands that speak to the unjust history of slavery and the colonial exploitation of Africa and African people, whose ramifications are still present to this day and still deeply embedded in African consciousness.

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Looking at the images, one faces the mental deviations and their effects on blackness and the black body as the faces change from white to blue to black all representative of the irrational branding of blackness that came with the colonizers' will and determination.

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Taking from the rich tribal history of Ethiopian practice of face paint, Muluneh confronts this history through the strong gaze of faces with dots illustrative of the demarcated African continent, African people, and loss of African aesthetics. The works question notions of ownership, separation, land, sea, water, and development questioning their navigation in our progressive societies.

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More of the artist will definitely be explored and shared