LONDON, ENGLAND.- The Camden Arts Centre presents Assefa Gebrekidan, on view through 11 September 2005. Assefa Gebrekidan’s new sculptural installation at Camden Arts Centre, part of the Africa 05 programme of events, is an extraordinary multi-sensory experience. This is Assefa Gebrekidan’s first solo exhibition outside his native Ethiopia, following a Camden Arts Centre residency. Light, heat and sound play key roles in his work and the vast window space and height of Camden Arts Centre’s 19th Century gallery are used to startling effect.

Regarded as one of the most interesting young artists working in Ethiopia today, Assefa G­ebrekidan scours the locality for materials. He combines fixed and kinetic elements, assembling intensely coloured and vibrant abstract constructions. The found materials, often plastic containers, refer in part to Ethiopian markets, suggesting their long rows of stalls selling colourful water carriers.

“Light and sound lines mainly dominate my works. My works are full of power and motion. I use wires.. these wires create different lines and satisfy my drawing thirsts”. Assefa Gebrekidan

As resident artist at Camden Arts Centre from June 2005, Assefa Gebrekidan has conceived the work on-site, allowing himself to be informed by a new environment and materials. Working quickly in the exhibition space he invents and transforms with great charm and innovation. In a group exhibition at Le Lieu Unique (Nantes, France October 2004), he showed a forest of illuminated plastic sculptures, some gently swaying above the viewer’s head. Unremarkable buckets, funnels, barrels and jerry-cans took on the contrasting qualities of the art of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.

Assefa Gebrekidan’s work is deeply rooted in his upbringing in Northern Ethiopia - torn between the ongoing war and moral preaching of the Orthodox Church. The form and shapes of his work often relate to weapons such as grenades and bullets, transforming these forms into neutral and non-violent abstract ideas. Born in 1973, Assefa Gebrekidan graduated from the Addis Ababa University Fine Art and Design School in sculpture in 1996. For several years, he taught art in the Mekele Fine Art School. In 2004 he exhibited in the Dak’Art Biennial, Dakar, Senegal and Le Lieu Unique, Nantes, France. He now lives in Addis Ababa where he has his own studio.

The residency and exhibition give Camden Arts Centre the opportunity to build on its educational partnership with the Ethiopian Community in Britain (ECB), whose national centre is also in Camden. The ECB was established over 20 years ago, and currently Ethiopian children aged 5-7 are enjoying weekly workshops organised by Camden Arts Centre with artist Raksha Patel. Upcoming special events open to the public and relating to Assefa Gebrekidan’s work at Camden Arts Centre include Ethiopia Day and Children’s Art Day.