Etiyé Dimma Poulsen

Born in 1968 in Aroussi, Ethiopia. Etiyé Dimma Poulsen studied Fine Arts in Copenhagen. In 1991 she moved to France.

Her start was difficult, as galeries in Paris would tell her that her art was more approapriate to be exhibited along with African Arts, in small boutiques. Today Etiyé Dimma Poulsen has exhibitions in Europe and Africa.

"This very traditional approach of art as craft, is also present in the form of my art. Not that I really copy traditional statues or tribal styles, but I reinvent 'archetypes' of 'primitive art', totems if you want, from my own processing of matter, from my memory, my vague nostalgia, my longing for a continent that I left since ages. The soil of Africa... But my work is not just African; there are some elements from ancient Greek art (Mycenaean), prehistoric Venuses, oriental art, etc.

I always try to make primordial figures, humans in their most naked, primitive being, as tokens of some basic existential condition: loneliness, fear, desire. But most of all: being there. Being part of. Going towards. A primordial presence, a trace of human culture on the face of planet earth. Each statue is a trace, more than a portrait. That is why I like my statues together, as a group, a community, a group of totems and a forest as well. For me making is a process, a stream. It is about the joy of living, of making. Even if the joy of life is by nature fleeting and transient, art should capture it in an enduring, eternal way. I hope my statues convey a sort of solidified ecstasy."

- Etiyé Dimma Poulsen