Tesfaye Tessema is a student of the father of Ethiopian contemporary art: Skunder Boghossian. Tesfaye studied under Skunder both at the School of Fine Art in Addis Ababa and at Howard University, where he got his MFA. Tesfaye has exhibited widely . Some New York venues have been the United Nations, the African American Institute, The Schomburg Center, 450 Broadway Gallery and Contemporary African Art Gallery. He has also shown at the Guggenheim Museum (Soho) and the Cochi Triennial  International Print Show, Cochi, Japan.

 

Occasionally an extraordinary work or an extraordinary artist causes us to modify our aim of only showing established artists. When African American sculptor Melvin Edwards brought Chrispen Matekenya to my attention, I was skeptical about his young age and lack of experience. When I found the work Male Torso, I knew that Mel was on to something. Chrispen's work is not without recognition. His work has been highly recommended in the large annual show, with an international jury, at the National Gallery of Zimbabwe.

 

Iba Ndiaye has been said by many to be the father of contemporary African art in Senegal. His rigorous training at the National Fine Arts School of Paris and the Grande-Chaumiere Academy prepared him well for such an auspicious role. The fact that he created the Department of Plastic Arts at the Ecole Nationale des Arts in Dakar must necessarily be the reason that there are so many fine Senegalese painters today. His international exhibits are too numerous to name. In New York he has shown at the African American Institute, the Museum for African Art, the Albert Gordon Gallery and the Contemporary African Art Gallery. Among his collectors are the MacArthur Foundation and the Musee d'Art Moderne, Paris.