Mack paints to his own tune

By Binyam Tamene

Abraham Lincoln once said the shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep, for which the sheep thank the shepherd as his liberator, while the wolf denounces him as the destroyer of liberty.

Clearly, the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a definition of liberty.

But contemporary Ethiopian artist Mack Eshete, 27, sides with the explanation of the wolf. In his art collection exhibited at the Goethe, Institute Addis Ababa last Thursday, the artist gives the liberty to eat parts of the sheep to the art exhibition attendees, not the wolf.

The art work depicts the shepherd playing a violin with his sheep listening assiduously. And so stunning is the melody that the sheep’s liberator himself forgets to do his duty of keeping his sheep from - not the wolf this time - but the knives and forks of the attendees.

Peculiar to this exhibition, the artist uses his liberty to choose material for his work and uses cow dung, which is mostly used in Ethiopia as a primary cooking fuel after it has dried, and as cement for construction by mixing it with mud. The dung was used for the statue that depicts the shepherd, along with other statues and the frames for most of his painting in the exhibition.

After attending the exhibition, Massimo De Vita, an Ethio-Italian artist, said it was interesting and expressed his special praise for the use of dung.

“I am really happy to witness these beautiful works of art, especially the What You See Is Not What it Seems series,” he added.

“I see his works in between Franciis Becon and Joseph Beuyes,” he said, adding his hope that many would come to enjoy the art world of Mack’s.

Admitting Becon’s influence in his work, the artist said he has got the inspiration to use dung as a medium of art from traditional house constructors.

“These constructers use animal dung mixed especially with ash to give a great deal of strength to their work and it can’t be easily dismantled,” he said.

And he takes that state of knowledge to his work “so that the art works could get the necessary potency.”

Besides, the artist said he “manipulates fresh cow dung to explore the issue of time, wastage and decay.”

Along with The Shepherd With The Violin, the exhibition holds 15 other art works of Mack’s who expressed his concerned with the issue of tradition, culture vis-a-vis modernity and globalized life affecting his generation as a whole.

He said: “Through my works I tried to come to terms with questions of identity, legacies of my past, what the present offers and what lies ahead in the future.”

Featuring a range of work in various mediums, the collection includes items such as a Hope Could Be a Mountain, Serategna Sefer series, What You See Is Not What it Seem series and other more than art works, with most of them one or less years old.
Most of Mack’s works in the exhibition are experimental by nature attempting to explore the notions of life, death, desire, beauty and decay using both traditional and modern mediums.

The colours red, black and white tend to dominate in his works, especially in the paintings.

Meanwhile, the exhibition’s curator Mack Eshete will be hosting a talk next week Wednesday (May 19) at the same venue, which will be followed by a lecture by Konjit Seyum, Wife of Alula Pancrust.

Entitled The Shepherd With The Violin, the collection of art work is being housed at the Goethe Institute Addis Ababa until June 2.

Mack Eshete studied art at the Addis Ababa University School of Art and design. He obtained his bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts in2005 specialising in Industrial Design. Since 2009, Mack has participated in several group shows in Addis Ababa as well as Germany in 2006 and 2009.