Yonas Gebremeskel (b. 1968)
Field Notes IV, 2017
Oil and wax on canvas
140 × 140 cm
Estimate KES 1,200,000–1,800,000
Bidding
Not sold
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About the work
Some four hundred small rectangles, ruled by hand and painted in earth red, indigo and bone, cover the canvas edge to edge. Each was sealed with wax, scraped back and repainted several times, and the earlier layers show through at the edges of every cell. One of the larger works in the series, and the first of the square format.
Condition
Very good. The wax surface has a soft, even bloom, as is usual for the series.
Provenance
Private collection, Addis Ababa; acquired from the above by the present owner, 2019.
Literature
Y. Gebremeskel, Field Notes 2009–2019, Addis Ababa, 2020, illustrated.
The artist
Gebremeskel's Field Notes, begun in 2009, are grids of small hand-ruled rectangles in earth red, indigo and bone, painted in oil and sealed with wax, then scraped and repainted many times over. He describes them as maps of fields seen from a plane window. The series now runs to more than forty paintings, few of which have come to auction.
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