LAST CHANCE Aïda Muluneh: This Bloom I Borrow

A new series of images by the Ethiopian art photographer, her second solo exhibition at the gallery. The show includes 10 works that have never been seen before.

Muluneh has been a distinctive voice in contemporary photography throughout her 25-year career; her vivid, carefully staged photographs of painted figures in surreal settings draw on African iconography, architecture and textiles to create narratives that blur the boundaries between photography, painting and performance. Muluneh has developed an experimental process that bridges photography, silkscreen printing and hand-painting to transform photographs into unique, painterly objects.

The works are characterised by bold geometric compositions and recurring symbols such as eyes, keys, masks, flowers, and ancestral motifs, mostly rendered in striking primary colours. They continue Muluneh’s ongoing enquiry into ideas of identity, womanhood and heritage through a lens of material experimentation.