Selome Muleta

born 1992 in Ziway, Ethiopia. Selome Muleta‘s work reflects on the relationship between the female body and domestic spaces. The figures in her paintings stare back at us reclined in chairs or curled in bathtubs, both inhabiting and embodying their surroundings. Home becomes a realm of introspection and identity, an interior world curated by its dweller. Raw, washy expanses of colour are tremulously anchored by quivering outlines. Blurring the boundary between foreground and the background, Selome’s semi-transparent figures encourage us to enter into these intimate moments of contemplation.

Based in Addis Ababa, Selome Muleta’s work has been exhibited internationally across Ethiopia, South Africa, Nigeria, the United States and Great Britain, among others. Her paintings are part of the Nasjonaalmuseet, Oslo, the Artistic Museum of Contemporary Art, Cardiff, Wales and the Denver Art Museum’s collection, where they are currently on view in the museum’s Modern and Contemporary Arts of Africa galleries. In 2024, she was nominated for the Norval Sovereign African Art Prize, with her work exhibited at the Norval Foundation in Cape Town. In 2025, Jan Kaps presented her first solo exhibition in Cologne, which received wide recognition, and is preparing a two-person presentation at Art Basel Paris.