Modernist Art in Ethiopia by Elizabeth W. Giorgis;

Author:Elizabeth W. Giorgis; [Giorgis, Elizabeth W.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ohio University Press
Published: 2018-06-15T00:00:00+00:00

Figure 3.9 Henok Melkamzer. Ethiopian zodiac. 2017. 90 × 110 cm. Natural pigments over a canvas. Courtesy of Henok Melkamzer.

Figure 3.10 Henok Melkamzer. Detail of Figure 3.9.

Debtera amulets are illuminated with images representing an intricate collection of networks and flowcharts, illustrating the processes by which what is exterior becomes interior and what is closed is also open—ultimately expressing the ambiguities of good and evil. I could not be sure whether Skunder understood the technical interpretation of these scrolls, but he often used their original parchment, which he scraped and washed in order to remove the original work. Frequently, it was hard to totally eliminate the original image, and he was left with subtle vestiges of it. On these almost imperceptible images, he juxtaposed his amazing creations. He painted symbols such as the bird and the serpent on the parchments. Such images recur in many church paintings and are also found in other African visual representations. Through these scrolls, Skunder illustrated the Janus face of Ethiopia’s artistic heritage, where the devotional and the magical fused. Mercier commented on this duality:

When the representational images on the scrolls are captioned, the inscriptions resemble those in religious paintings. “Image of Michael,” they say, or “How Our Lord told the demon to be silent.” Also as in religious paintings, these images illustrate certain texts, among them the passages from the Gospels describing Christ’s healing miracles. It is unsurprising, then, that scroll images and religious paintings are sometimes iconographically and stylistically identical. . . .

If angels are very present in a scroll, they are usually Phanuel, the “expeller of demons . . . ,” who is little known in religious life but appears often in the scrolls.72

Skunder introduced the modernist renditions of the scrolls in 1966 after he returned to Ethiopia, initially to his students at the Fine Art School and everywhere else thereafter. Many Ethiopian artists have since deployed these works in their art without really comprehending the ambiguous third space that he tried to negotiate. Several Western curators and historians have written on the debtera scrolls and how Ethiopian artists have employed these forms. Yet Skunder’s contribution to this larger investigation and his influence on other artists’ scroll paintings are largely disregarded, mainly because contemporary Western historians and critics are unfamiliar with his works.

For instance, in the catalog Wossene Worke Kosrof: Writing God’s Other Name (2006), C. Daniel Dawson stated:

Coming as he does from Ethiopia, it is not surprising that Wossene has an understanding of art as medicine. Ethiopian culture has a long tradition of magical healing scrolls and paintings, as well as rituals and music with the same intent. . . . For me, Wossene’s concern with the processes inside his paintings has helped him develop a personal language of visual relationships. Not only are his paintings composed of specific types of symbols, letters or words but these elements have a relationship with each other.73

What are the “symbols” or “zones” that Dawson noted? When Skunder used them, it was with deep reverence for the meaning of these symbols and deference to their profound cultural implications.

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