Selamawit Gebretsadik takes Ethiopia’s leaf-layered art to international audiences
Addis Ababa artist Selamawit Gebretsadik is gaining wider attention for oil paintings built from layered leaf motifs, following a continental exhibition at UNECA and ahead of a planned Moscow presentation.
In short
- Addis Ababa artist Selamawit Gebretsadik is gaining wider attention for oil paintings built from layered leaf motifs, following a continental exhibition at UNECA and ahead of a planned Moscow presentation.
Ethiopian painter Selamawit Gebretsadik is expanding the international reach of a practice built around densely layered leaf motifs, after exhibiting at the “Unity” Contemporary Art Exhibition in Addis Ababa and ahead of a planned presentation in Moscow.
Her two oil paintings, “Legacy 1” and “Legacy 2,” were shown at the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa during the inaugural World Public Summit Africa, according to a profile published by The Reporter on August 8, 2026. The exhibition brought together artists from 16 African countries and an Afro-Brazilian participant.
Gebretsadik’s paintings use repeated botanical forms to merge human figures with their surroundings. One of the exhibited works depicts a mother and child through layered plant textures; the other centers on a woman holding a flower. She describes the leaf as a symbol that can connect individual lives with community, memory and cycles of renewal.
The artist’s route into full-time painting was unconventional. Raised in Addis Ababa, she studied law and accounting and worked in administration and the social sector before leaving that career. Encounters with people describing systemic violence helped shape an earlier project, “Something Unjust,” which translated experiences of hardship into visual metaphor.
Gebretsadik studied painting at the Enlightenment Art Academy and graduated in 2013. She later supported her practice through a printing business and teaching art to children, while developing her work during extended studio periods.
Her career has since included three solo exhibitions, including a show at Fendika Cultural Center, and recognition at AWAA 2024. The Reporter said her works have entered private collections in 13 countries.
The “Unity” exhibition is expected to travel to Moscow, giving Gebretsadik another platform for work that joins Ethiopian artistic traditions with a contemporary visual language. Her growing visibility also adds to the presence of Ethiopian women in a field shaped by earlier figures including Desta Hagos and Merikokeb Berhanu.
