Gebrelwa Worku

Gebrelwa Worku is Ethiopian visual artist based in Addis Ababa. She earned her BA in Fine Arts with a focus on interdisciplinary visual arts from the Addis Ababa University Alle School of Fine Arts and Design.
Growing up in Addis Ababa has significantly influenced her artistic journey and the themes she explores in her work. Her art focuses on exploring values, particularly in relation to clothing. She is intrigued by the emphasis placed on one's wardrobe and the value attributed to it. Through her work, she expresses a desire for her ideas and wishes to be valued more than the fabric that covers her body. This involves bringing together disparate colors and sizes to create balance. She uses bright and bold-colored fabrics as focal points to represent the material that is often given more value than the human being. By collecting and using different types of fabric scraps—rejected, thrown away, and forgotten materials—she draws a parallel to how human bodies are sometimes undervalued. She dyes the fabrics, creates textures, and sometimes burns them to translate her ideas into art pieces. Sewing is also a significant aspect of her work, implying mending, renovating, and fixing holes. She stitches together old, burnt, and dirty scraps with new, expensive fabrics to bring balance between two opposing ideas.
Source
https://systemagazine.wordpress.com/2024/05/08/in-conversation-with-gebrelwa-worku/
https://www.instagram.com/gebrelwaworku/