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Yegizaw Michael’s Art

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Like most artists, Yegizaw Michael refuses to define art. To do so would limit its possibilities, its meaning, its universality - an understanding which was confirmed for Yeggy on his first trip abroad for a visual art exhibition in Austria. 

"That was a big defining moment for me in terms of understanding that art is a universal language and no matter where you take it, people connect with you on a different level," he said. "I don’t have to speak German and Japanese. My art was communicating with people and people were communicating with me very clearly.”

But the idea that art is woven into everyday life and culture and that it is expressed through the individual and the collective has been with Yeggy since his youth in Addis Abeba. He saw it in the musicians who lived in his neighborhood, the murals that were displayed upon the walls, the decorative threads of the clothes and the words and visions that came from his own mind. Ask Yeggy if he can recall a time when he did not see himself as part of this thread, as part of being an artist, and he would say he couldn't.

"I never thought of working as an artist or not. I didn’t sit there and decide," he said. "If you're a creative person, its hard to think any other way. You don’t have control of it. Being an artist, I don’t have control of it. It's in my nature -analyzing things and thinking about things creatively. "When I'm in front of the canvas, I'm lost in the canvas."

Inspired at a young age, Yeggy says that he was never discouraged by his family and that, contrary to the stereotype of overly-practical habesha parents, his mother was one of his greatest supporters. He enrolled in competitions beginning in junior high school, where he met the renowned national artist Afework Tekle. Meeting the man whose artistry adorned the landscape of Ethiopia certainly exposed Yeggy to further possibilities.

"I was amazed by his work and how he represented his people around the world and how he idealized where art can take you and expressing yourself," he said.

After studying at the Addis Ababa Fine Art School, he moved around various countries in Africa, Europe, and finally settled in the United States in 1998. His experience of transcending culture and continents is evoked in his current exhibition entitled "Crossings: A Visual Exploration of Crisis."

The news report of a woman being killed in front of her two children is what ignited and inspired the collection. Over a year ago, Egyptian police opened fire on the woman as she attempted to cross over the border from Egypt into Israel. For asylum seekers, this migration pattern across the Sinai is well known. The desperation, brutality and realities of that woman's story triggered Yeggy's quest to interpret the complexities of migration.

"I explored people crossing mentally, psychologically, economically, and culturally," he said. "I tried to bring that to light. It is art of healing. By expressing that, I get the healing. At the same time, I bring the issue to light using art.

Yeggy is obviously no stranger to migration. His own life pattern and that of his family and friends have been intertwined with the constant pace of seeking out a better life across borders. Crossing borders, as Yeggy illustrates in the emotion of his paintings, is traumatizing.

From living in a country with little opportunity to integrating into a new homeland full of promises, he channeled those collective experiences to inform his creative process.

"If I didn’t go through that or I didn’t have people and family who went through that, I wouldn’t have felt the way I felt," he said.

"Who doesn’t have any family member who was trying to cross a border -even now I’m facing that every day: I’m crossing the psychological boundaries to a new and different culture."

His own crossings and journeys and migrating from Africa to Europe to the United States wasn't easy, he admits, but they did mold him nevertheless.

"It was hard, it was very difficult. It made me what I am today," he said. "Those experiences crafted me. I left forcefully because of war and that tears you apart from the people you love, the place you love, and that stays with you for a long time."

Those emotions are most apparent in the painting "Interconnection," which depicts an entity clad with many heads and few feet - a reflection of the rift between the individual and community. "Where I come from is very communal and the western world is individualistic, and as I tried to contrast the two, this painting came to mind. Back in Eritrea, people are very connected to each other and interdependent, that’s how the community is formed. The idea of individuality, in the current culture of globalization, and the West trying to export this culture under the cover of democracy to the rest of the world, doesn’t work without tearing people apart."

Despite the strong overtones of Yeggy's collection, he sees his primary purpose being committed to conveyance and not judgment. "My art is actually creating awareness and questions about issues," he said. "It is a reflection of my beliefs and my thoughts and my philosophy but at the same time, people have different interpretations of the art." Like most artists, Yeggy doesn't undermine the value of his work because, essentially, creative expression, whether collective or individual, is what influences change. "Art is important to any society. It is a way to communicate different issues," he said. "I stand for justice and for peace and I’d like to be remembered for that."