Endurance by Degaffe

On International Women’s Day, Degaffe’s solo exhibition "Endurance" will be showcased at GALLERY BRULHART. Art Endurance symbolizes the struggle against inequality, injustice, deprivation, and violence against women. This will be the first time ever that the artist’s entire oeuvre will be presented, spanning numerous years, and including works never shown before. 

Degaffe’s endurance series, initiated in 2006, portrays women confronting social problems. The artist herself was highly influenced by the famine in Ethiopia in the 1980s in her teenage years. Living between cultures, she shows hidden views that few of us have seen for ourselves, that is, the physical toll of deprivation and seclusion on women’s bodies: protruding ribs, missing eyes and ears. Elongated necks speak of tenacity and resilience in migration.  

Evocative of voyage and dreams, Degaffe’s paintings are both colorful and obscure, ranging from oceans to mountains, lakes to deserts, light and dark, depicting nature and natural resources appreciated and used by some but out of reach for others who desperately need them for survival and dignity. Art Endurance is the expression of challenges that seems so far away but closer to our daily lives than we may wish to believe. 

The series Art Endurance is a portrayal of a world of crossed borders in all senses of the term, political and physical borders, and bodily boundaries. Degaffe often depicts disturbing views with a tenderness and honesty that can shock but at the same time fascinate while pulling at the soul. Centre piece of her art is the resilience and strength of the human spirit.