Tizta Berhanu, Olive sisters, 2024, Oil on canvas, 60 x 220 cm, 23 5/8 x 86 5/8 in
Tiwani Contemporary is delighted to present Tizta Berhanu: Love Is A Practice in collaboration with Addis Fine Art.
The exhibition is a tender meditation on the many forms love takes in our daily lives. For Berhanu, love is not just a fleeting emotion but an active, ongoing gesture, something we choose, nurture, and embody through presence, empathy, and quiet devotion. At the heart of the exhibition is the human need for support. Working with transparent layers, Berhanu creates dream-like spaces where unseen emotional currents surface. Hands and faces speak the language of empathy; gestures carry meaning beyond words. In these luminous compositions, the intangible bonds between people take form, revealing connection as something both delicate and resilient.
Berhanu portrays life as inherently interconnected. Her figures appear side by side, their actions and emotions flowing together, revealing our nature as deeply social beings. Yet within this closeness, she gently exposes a subtle truth: living beside one another does not always mean truly connecting. We may carry each other’s weight and still remain strangers to one another’s inner worlds. In moments of collective stillness, bodies gather while consciousness retreats inward, each figure quietly holding private burdens.
Through repeated gestures: bowed heads, leaning bodies, intertwined hands for example, Berhanu reflects on the quiet heaviness we bear individually and together. Speaking to the fragile intimacy of shared pain, Berhanu renders moments of tenderness in which love manifests as empathy, a presence that does not fix suffering but stays with it. Through her compassionate lens, Tizta Berhanu reminds us that love lives not only in grand declarations, but in the quiet, steadfast practice of being there for one another.
About the artist
Tizta Berhanu (b. 1991) was born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where she lives and works. She graduated in 2013 from the Addis Ababa University Alle School of Fine Arts and Design, where she studied under the influential modernist painter Tadesse Mesfin. Trained as a figurative painter, Tizta has developed a practice grounded in close emotional observation, using painting as a means to reflect on human connection, vulnerability, and care.
The entangled nature of her imagery gestures toward the importance of community and mutual care, values deeply rooted in Ethiopian social life. By foregrounding gestures of touch, support, and proximity, Tizta invites viewers to reflect on their own emotional relationships and capacities for empathy.
Her work has been shown internationally in solo and group exhibitions across Nigeria, South Africa, Sweden, and the United States, including three solo presentations with Addis Fine Art in Addis Ababa, New York, and London.
Recent exhibitions include: Agape, Addis Fine Art, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (solo - 2025); Connected Threads: Contemporary Art from the Horn of Africa and Diaspora, Addis Fine Art, New York, NY, USA (group - 2024); Beyond Veils, Rele Gallery, Lagos, Nigeria (group - 2024); Norval Sovereign African Art Prize Finalists, Norval Foundation, Cape Town, South Africa (group - 2024); Synthesis of Souls, Addis Fine Art, London, UK (solo - 2023 ); When We See Us: A Century of Black Figuration in Painting, Zeitz MoCAA, Cape Town, South Africa (group - 2022); From Modern to Contemporary: Artists from the Horn of Africa and Diaspora, CFHILL, Stockholm, Sweden (group - 2021); The Armory Show, with Addis Fine Art, New York, NY, USA (solo - 2021); Heber, Addis Fine Art, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (solo - 2021); Investec Cape Town Art Fair, Cape Town, South Africa (solo - 2020); Addis Calling III, Addis Fine Art Gallery, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (group - 2019); Living Portraits, Tonya Art Gallery, Seattle, WA, USA (solo - 2017); Features of Emotions, Lela Contemporary Art Gallery, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (solo - 2017); Human Rights, UNECA, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (group - 2018); Dare Carry On, The German Development Cooperation Office, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (group - 2017)