About Mack Eshete Work

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My artwork takes a critical view of social, political and cultural issues. Often referencing Ethiopian history my work explores the varying relationships between tradition, culture and modernization. And changes involved in all these, and how they shape and are shaping the nations course of history, affect the public sphere, create opinions, determine way of life; by implying the sort of response different sections of the society provide for the changes occur as a result. The kind of social realm that prevails due to emerging social relationships among members of the society and the social, economic and political structures; particularly with the governing entity. 

 

In this respect, I intended to evaluate the role of public propaganda, the impact of dependency on foreign aid of developing countries like Ethiopia; where governments’ accountability in this part of the world is not only for their citizenary, but also to their donors with not too often  parallel interests.

 

The concomitant effects of all these in the lives of people, as manifested in migration of young Ethiopians, ever increasing urbanization that are part and parcel of our daily life, unemployment, disintegration of long standing social support systems which create greater social dependency. My work then concentrates on subjects such as poverty, hunger, absence of freedom of speech and the inequality they foster, that in turn shape the changes in tradition, culture and modernization of the nation.

 

Often times these themes are combined into installations, painting, drawing & sculpture mostly used the color red, black, white and the deconstruction of the human body and the colures establishes a the deep seated concern on the emotional state of human kind. I think of my installations as unfinished inventories of fragments: objects, live and dead animals (sheep), dung, drawings, paintings and other inventions. They are improvisational sites in which the constructed and the ready-made are used to question our making of the world through language and knowledge. My arrangements are schematic, inviting the viewer to move into a space of speculation by creating discussion between the object and the viewer. I rely on our desires for beauty, decay, poetics and seduction.

 

While I use a variety of convectional and unconventional medium of materials and processes in each project my methodology is consistent. Although there may not always be material similarities between the different projects they are linked by recurring formal concerns and through the subject matter. The subject matter of each body of work determines the materials and the forms of the work. Each project often consists of multiple works, often in a range of different media, grouped around specific themes and meanings. During research and production new areas of interest arise and lead to the next body of work.

 

Each project often consists of multiple works, often in a range of different media, grouped around specific themes and meanings. During research and production new areas of interest arise and lead to the next body of work.