Abel Beyene & Simone Brewster: My Inner World

My Inner World – Duo Show Abel Beyene & Simone Brewster

Abel Beyene (b. 1995, Addis Ababa) is an Ethiopian multidisciplinary artist whose practice delves into themes of identity, memory, and migration in today’s rapidly shifting world. Trained at the Abyssinia Fine Arts and Vocational Training Centre as well as the Teferi Mekonen School of Fine Arts, he works across painting, collage, photography, digital media, and mixed techniques. His creative process, rooted in both close observation and deep introspection, captures fleeting expressions, human vulnerability, and the changing rhythm of Addis Ababa’s urban landscape. Figurative compositions, bold palettes, and textured surfaces inspired by Ethiopian textiles characterize much of his work.

Through his collages and paintings, Beyene combines personal narratives with collective histories, addressing displacement, transformation, and the passage of knowledge. His pieces tell poetic stories of African life while opening conversations around broader social and cultural issues. Exhibited in Nairobi and soon to be presented at the Museum Lapidarium in Croatia as well as at OOA Gallery in September 2025, he is increasingly recognized as one of East Africa’s rising contemporary voices. Visually rich and emotionally layered, his work contributes to ongoing global dialogues on identity, environment, and cultural expression.

Simone Brewster is a London-based artist, designer, and educator whose practice weaves together art, design, and cultural narrative. With academic training in architecture and design at UCL and the Royal College of Art, she draws from her Caribbean heritage to reimagine cultural forms through bold color, scale, and materiality. Her work balances conceptual inquiry with craftsmanship, creating expressive objects and paintings that challenge conventional boundaries between Western and diasporic aesthetics.

In her abstract paintings, Brewster explores identity and emotion, inviting viewers to engage with the complexity of human experience beyond representation. She also approaches fashion as an artistic language—an arena where the private self can be externalized. Merging form, line, and chromatic intensity, both her paintings and fashion-inspired works serve as visual narratives that celebrate fluid, layered identities, transforming aesthetics into instruments of self-reflection and empowerment.

Visit Us in Sitges

My Inner World invites audiences to explore questions of identity, memory, and cultural expression through the voices of Abel Beyene and Simone Brewster. The exhibition reflects on the inner landscapes that shape personal and collective experience.

• On view at OOA Gallery – Sitges, Spain
• September 13 – October 19, 2025
• Free entry