Abel Beyene Ethiopia, b. 1995 – Works from €1,000 – €4,900

Abel Beyene: Ethiopian Figuration, Memory and Inner Worlds

Abel Beyene is an Ethiopian contemporary artist born in 1995 in Addis Ababa, where he lives and works. His paintings, works on paper and collaged compositions explore identity, memory, migration and the emotional texture of contemporary Ethiopian life. Moving between observation and introspection, Beyene creates figurative works in which human presence appears fragile, reflective and quietly charged.

His practice belongs to a wider conversation within contemporary African art, where figuration is used not only to represent the body, but to examine vulnerability, displacement, self-perception and the changing social landscapes of African cities. In Beyene’s work, the figure often becomes a site of transition: between intimacy and distance, memory and present experience, individual identity and collective history.

View available works by Abel Beyene ›

Portraiture, Vulnerability and Human Presence

Beyene’s figurative paintings are marked by a strong sense of emotional restraint. His subjects often appear seated, waiting, looking inward or suspended within moments of reflection. Rather than constructing dramatic narratives, he gives attention to posture, silence, gesture and atmosphere. The result is a form of portraiture that is less concerned with likeness than with psychological presence.

This sensitivity is especially visible in his treatment of the human figure. Faces may appear softened, partial or unresolved, while bodies are placed within ambient spaces shaped by colour and loose painterly movement. These choices allow the work to hold a delicate tension between visibility and disappearance, suggesting identities that are still forming, shifting or being remembered.

Addis Ababa, Migration and the Texture of Urban Life

Based in Addis Ababa, Beyene draws conceptual material from daily life and from the changing rhythm of the city around him. His works reflect the tension between personal experience and collective transformation, addressing questions of history, displacement, knowledge and belonging within shifting urban and cultural landscapes.

Rather than illustrating the city directly, Beyene often translates its emotional atmosphere into colour, fragmented backgrounds, handwritten traces, found language and layered surfaces. These elements create spaces that feel both lived and unstable, intimate and open-ended. His paintings suggest that contemporary identity is shaped not only by place, but by memory, movement and the invisible pressures of social change.

Colour, Collage and Reflective Space

Colour plays an important role in Beyene’s work. Warm oranges, yellows, greens and blues often surround his figures, creating interiors and landscapes that feel emotionally heightened rather than purely descriptive. In his recent Moment of Reflection works, the figure is placed within sparse compositions where white space, loose brushwork and minimal detail give the image a quiet, contemplative force.

Beyene’s broader practice also includes collage, photography, digital art and mixed techniques, yet painting remains central to the way he constructs presence. His use of layered surfaces, textured passages and fragmented visual language gives his work a poetic quality, allowing each image to operate between personal narrative and collective experience.

Selected Exhibitions and Recognition

Abel Beyene’s work has been presented in group exhibitions including Musing in Colour at Tewasart Gallery in Nairobi, Kenya; Transformations: New Perspectives at Tewasart Gallery in Nairobi; Selfishness Identity at Alliance Ethio-Française in Addis Ababa; and Contemporary African Art at London Lighthouse Gallery, London.

Recent and upcoming presentations include My Inner World, a two-person exhibition with Simone Brewster at OOA Gallery, and Art from a Suitcase, curated by Goran Tomcic at Museum Lapidarium in Novigrad, Croatia. His work has also been included in OOA Gallery’s programme, including ECCE UOMO: Masculinity in Contemporary African Art. 

Available Works

Explore a selection of available works by Abel Beyene at OOA Gallery, including paintings and works on paper that explore identity, memory, reflection, migration and contemporary Ethiopian life.