Lower East Side, New York
Hana Yilma Godine
A Brush in the Universe
Fridman GalleryFridman Gallery is pleased to present A Brush in the Universe, a solo exhibition by Ethiopian painter Hana Yilma Godine spanning the both Fridman Gallery and Rachel Uffner Gallery. This is the second time the galleries are collaborating to present Godine’s work, following the success of their first dual show, A Hair Salon in Addis Ababa two years ago. The exhibition brings together Godine’s new paintings of women occupying spiritual, imagined spaces that fuse earthly and otherworldly landscapes. Godine presents her mythical, larger-than-life women in conversation with the universe – mountains, rivers, oceans, plants, animals, birds. The paintings, which blend oil and acrylic paint with textiles on canvas, emerge from the artist’s ongoing research and reflection on the evolving representations of the female body in Ethiopian art and history, from the Archaic mythological heroine Andromeda to Queen Zauditu, Empress of Ethiopia from 1916 to 1930. In a patriarchal society torn apart by civil wars, Godine presents a parallel dimension where women are safe from violence and free to express their power, beauty and womanhood independent of social and political restrictions. Hana Yilma Godine received an MFA from Boston University in 2020, having previously studied at the Abyssinia School of Fine Art and Design, and the Ale School of Fine Art in Addis Ababa. Godine’s first exhibition with Fridman Gallery, Spaces within Space, took place in the Fall of 2020, followed by her first institutional exhibition at the National Museum of Ethiopia in the Spring of 2021, and a two-gallery solo show at Fridman Gallery and Rachel Uffner Gallery in 2022. Godine’s work is in the collections of the Hirshhorn Museum, Inhotim Museum, and the Sharjah Foundation. She lives and works in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.