I was born and raised in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and moved to the United States at 18. My idea of home and belonging is no longer singular. I am in a continuous dialogue, negotiating here and there, tradition and modernity. While collaging my past with present experiences, I attempt to make a third entity that is in both the past and the present in which places and time are unspecified and continuously shifting.

These fragmentations are reconciled through the performative aspects of my work. My physical body becomes a witness that connects multiple realities. It serves as a direct means of communication to embrace the here and now, and to connect with the ephemeral in the everyday. For me, an imaginative relationship

is necessary to adapt to a new environment. In my work I combine traditional and modern mediums. After painting or drawing I take a picture of the finished work using a still camera that is connected to a computer. I continue reworking on top of the same surface and documenting its progress. When the desired

exploration is realized I edit the images and make an animation. The tactile making of my work now only exists digitally, the singular authentic object is forever gone but its process has been documented. The documentation aspect of the work serves as an indexical vehicle connecting the past with the present.