Ethiopia is a country plagued by drought, famine and warfare. Yet
Barbara Paul’s newest photographs of the country are nothing short of visually fantastic.
Jan. 27 marked the opening of the Thomas J. Walsh Art Gallery’s newest exhibition, “Ethiopia: Religious Pageantry and Tribal Traditions”.
The exhibit avoids focusing on the country’s excessive poverty, and instead examines all of its geographical, ethnic and religious diversity.
The photographs focus on the country’s centuries old ancestral religious and tribal traditions, but examine everything from work customs to traditional dress, nature to religious artwork.
To create the exhibit, Paul spent an extended amount of time in Ethiopia, examining the pillars of Ethiopian culture – Christianity, the Tim Kat festival and the Omo valley tribes – to create an exhibition that is both anthropologically telling and aesthetically striking.
“My feeling is that if there were cameras in the Biblical days, the pictures would look almost the same,” Paul said at the opening reception. “I’m continually struck by the similarities between the tribal people and ourselves. It really is a small world.”
Highlights of the exhibit include “Young Mother Breastfeeding her
Child,” “Mursi Woman at Rest,” “Woman with flowers at Khat Market,” the variety
of lip plate pictures, and the photographs from the small Muslim community of Harar.
The exhibit will be on display in the Quick Center’s Walsh Art Gallery through Mar. 26. The Gallery is open Tuesday to Saturday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday from noon to 4 p.m.
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