In the sterile, white-walled space of White Cube Hong Kong, Tesfaye Urgessa’s new paintings seem to radiate a contained intensity. Clusters of figures emerge from layered surfaces at once frozen and in motion, inhabiting interiors and chaotic tableaux. Across the canvas, rough, raw marks sit in deliberate tension with passages of refined detail. The exhibition, The Lingering Departure, marks Urgessa’s first show with the gallery since joining in August. It follows his first solo museum presentation in Asia, at the Red Brick Art Museum in Beijing, and brings together works created over the past year in Addis Ababa and Stuttgart.

Taken from one of the paintings’ titles, The Lingering Departure captures the emotional core of Urgessa’s practice, the idea that leaving is never reduced to a single moment but is a state that begins before departure and continues long after arrival. “A departure sounds sudden, while lingering suggests something that remains,” emails Urgessa from his studio in Germany. “Before any physical or psychological change happens, there is a period of anticipation. Then the departure takes place but the place you left does not disappear. It stays with you through memory.”

A biographical arc of childhood and art training in Ethiopia, migration to Germany and now a practice that moves between continents gives weight to the artist’s assertion that the place you left does not disappear. Born in Addis Ababa in 1983, Urgessa grew up in a family where art was woven into the quotidian, watching his father draw portraits from photographs of neighbours. “I think seeing him draw and paint created an interest in me to start drawing myself when I was very young,” he says. “But I didn’t really know, until quite late in my teenage years, that there was a whole world of art or that becoming an artist could actually be a profession.”

His early visual education came not from galleries or textbooks but from copying the flat, vivid figures of Ethiopian Orthodox church murals, an experience that embedded a distinct way of seeing into his work. “The frontal gaze of the figures, the vivid and bright colours but also the simplicity and flatness of the compositions – those qualities stayed with me visually,” he explains.

It was only later, at art school in Ethiopia and then in Germany, where he enrolled at the State Academy of Fine Arts Stuttgart in 2009, that he encountered a wider art history, sharpening the questions of identity that had previously remained unspoken and would become foundational to his practice. “I don’t really remember thinking about my identity in the same way before I came to Germany,” he admits. “Being in a different country and culture made me much more aware of where I came from and how I was perceived by others.”

The physical departure from Addis Ababa did not erase Ethiopia; instead, it became a psychological presence that travelled with him, refracted through memory, language and the politics of belonging in Europe. As migration grew, these questions grew louder in his work. “It made me think more deeply about migration, belonging, exclusion and the way societies decide who belongs and who does not,” he says.

Yet the paintings avoid falling into didacticism: they are not illustrations of political arguments but spaces in which psychological and social tensions coexist. Urgessa’s figures, often suspended in kinetic, dense compositions where objects and figures coexist alongside one another, seem to embody this condition of being neither fully rooted nor entirely adrift, existing in a liminal space shaped by displacement. It was fitting, then, that he was the first artist to represent Ethiopia at the Venice Biennale, for its 60th edition in 2024, bringing to an international stage a visual language forged in migration – one that speaks directly to the experience of being from somewhere while constantly negotiating that origin from elsewhere. The lingering departure is not merely a theme in his art so much as the condition of his life.

This sensibility is evident in works like Sternschnuppen (2025-26), the title of which comes from the German for shooting stars, evoking transcience, wonder and the act of making a wish. In the painting, a mother-like figure shelters two smaller figures beneath her. The scene suggests a picnic, with the figures resting atop a white cloth on the ground, on which abstract forms – resembling bits of toys and limbs – stand in for bread or fruit, transforming a personal memory into a universal image of rest and protection. “It becomes less about a particular family activity and more about a universal image of rest, togetherness and protection,” says Urgessa.

Similarly, in War in Play (2025), a female figure becomes a kind of shelter, absorbing danger before it reaches the children enveloped beneath her blue mantle. From the right side of the composition, hands throw small, plane-like objects into the space, a gesture that recalls the innocence of childhood paper aeroplanes but here carries a darker resonance. The mother figure’s mouth is open, ready to swallow one of these objects, consuming the danger before it can reach those she protects. “I cannot avoid thinking about the way governments and political leaders sometimes appear to play with objects of enormous destructive power as if they were toys,” he says. “The consequences fall upon people who have very little power over the decisions being made: children, mothers, the elderly, the sick.”

The domestic interiors that recur in his work, such as in Of What Once Was (2026) and Safe Slumber (2025), are psychologically charged, not through deliberate design but through the act of painting itself. “When you deny some of the natural laws that we normally understand – such as perspective, gravity or the way objects are supposed to occupy space – and begin to break those laws, a certain tension happens almost automatically,” he says.

Distinctively elongated bodies take central position, often kneeling or sitting, brushing up against the limits of the frame. In Of What Once Was, a female figure’s back swells into an enormous arc that encloses a tangle of limbs from a quartet of figures clustered at the composition’s centre, imparting a sense of motion. “I am drawn to the idea that the figures are not simply suspended in a room but are travelling through time and space,” explains Urgessa. “Perhaps the floating figures are moving away from what once defined them. Perhaps they are simply passing through another state. I am more interested in leaving them suspended in that uncertain space: between what once was and what they are becoming.”

The surfaces of Urgessa’s canvases are a record of his process, where rough, gestural marks sit alongside refined, deliberate passages. Certain elements to which the artist wants to draw attention are exaggerated with colour and texture. “In the beginning of a painting, I tend to work very fast, impulsively and gesturally. But as the painting develops, that speed gradually gets replaced by more thinking, slowing down and working within smaller areas, with greater attention to detail,” he says. The tension between spontaneity and control is not premeditated but emerges organically. This approach mirrors the thematic tensions in his work of intimacy and distance, home and migration, individual identity and collective life.

In Hong Kong, a city itself defined by movement and transition, this resonance feels particularly acute. Urgessa’s figures, caught between departure and belonging, speak directly to the feeling of being suspended between worlds. “We move from childhood into adolescence, from adolescence into adulthood; we live in one place and then leave it for another; we become one thing and then transition into something else,” he says. “What remains through these transitions, and how little of what we once were can remain with us continuously, is perhaps a trace, a memory or a fragment of a previous state.”

In Urgessa’s paintings, leaving is never a clean break. It remains emotionally unresolved – a condition rather than an event. The Lingering Departure asks what we carry with us, what we leave behind and how memory travels with us into the present and beyond.

---

在香港白立方乾淨潔白的展覽空間裡，特斯法耶・烏爾蓋薩的新作彷彿散發著一股內斂的強烈張力。一群群人物從層層疊疊的畫面中浮現，既像凝固在原地，又彷彿仍在移動，棲身於室內空間與混亂的群像場景之中。畫布上，粗獷而原始的筆觸與經過細緻琢磨的部分刻意形成張力。是次展覽「未決之離」是烏爾蓋薩自8月加入畫廊後的首個展覽。此前，他剛於北京紅磚美術館舉行在亞洲的首次博物館個展，展覽匯聚他過去一年在亞的斯亞貝巴及斯圖加特創作的作品。

「未決之離」取自其中一幅作品的標題，捕捉了烏爾蓋薩創作的情感核心。離開從來不是一個單一的時刻，而是一種在啟程之前便已開始、抵達之後仍久久延續的狀態。烏爾蓋薩從德國的工作室以電郵回覆：「『離開』聽起來很突然，而『未決』則暗示留存。」他指出：「在任何身體或心理變化發生之前，都會有一段等待的時間。然後離開發生了，但你離開的地方並不會因此消失，它會透過記憶與你同行。」

他在埃塞俄比亞度過童年並接受藝術訓練，其後移居德國，如今又在不同洲份之間展開創作。這條貫穿人生的軌跡，讓藝術家所說「你離開的地方並不會消失」這句話更具重量。烏爾蓋薩於1983年在亞的斯亞貝巴出生，從小看著父親以鄰居相片作依歸繪畫肖像，在一個藝術融入生活的家庭中長大。他說：「看著他畫畫，讓我從小時候便開始對畫畫產生興趣。但直到青少年後期，我才真正知道原來有一整個藝術世界的存在，而藝術家可以是一種職業。」

他早期的視覺教育並非來自畫廊或教科書，而是來自臨摹埃塞俄比亞東正教教堂壁畫中平面而鮮明的人物，這段經歷將一種獨特的觀看方式植入他的創作之中。他解釋道：「人物正面凝視的方式、鮮明明亮的色彩，以及構圖的簡潔與平面感，這些特質在視覺上一直留在我心裡。」

直到後來在埃塞俄比亞的藝術學校，以及其後於2009年入讀德國斯圖加特國立造型藝術學院，他才接觸到更廣闊的藝術史，亦開始更清晰地思考過去一直未曾言明、後來成為其創作根基的身份問題。他坦言：「我來德國之前，未曾以同樣的方式思考自己的身份。身處一個不同的國家和文化之中，讓我更加意識到自己來自哪裡，以及別人如何看待自己。

離開亞的斯亞貝巴的經驗並沒有抹去埃塞俄比亞，相反，它化為了一種同行的心理存在，透過記憶、語言，以及歐洲社會中關於歸屬的政治折射出來。隨著移民經歷逐漸加深，這些問題也在他的作品中變得愈來愈鮮明。他說：「這讓我更深入地思考移民、歸屬、排斥，以及社會如何決定誰屬於這裡、誰不屬於這裡。」

然而，這些畫作並沒有落入說教式的表達，它們並不是政治論述的圖解，而是讓心理與社會張力共存的空間。烏爾蓋薩筆下的人物經常懸置於充滿動感而密集的構圖之中，物件與人物彼此並置，彷彿體現出一種既未完全扎根、又未徹底漂泊的狀態，存在於由離散所塑造的臨界空間。他成為2024年第60屆威尼斯雙年展首位代表埃塞俄比亞參展的藝術家，也就再恰當不過。他將一種在移居經驗中形成的視覺語言帶到國際舞台，這種語言直接回應了身為某個地方的人、卻又不斷從另一個地方重新協商自身出身的經驗。這種揮之不去的別離不只是他藝術中的一個主題，更幾乎是他生命本身的狀態。

這種感受在《Sternschnuppen》（2025–26年）等作品中尤其明顯。作品標題取自德語，意為「流星」，令人聯想到轉瞬即逝、驚奇，以及許願的行為。畫中，一名如母親般的人物庇護著身下兩個較小的人物。場景似乎是野餐，人物坐臥於地上的白布之上，而布上散落著抽象形體，形似玩具碎片與四肢的物體取代了麵包和水果，將個人記憶轉化為一幅關於休憩與保護的普世圖像。烏爾蓋薩說：「它不只是關於某個特定家庭活動，而更像是一幅關於休息、相聚與保護的普世圖像。」

同樣地，在《War in Play》（2025年）中，一名女性人物成為某種庇護，在危險觸及被她藍色披肩包覆的孩子之前，先將危險承擔。構圖右側有多隻手將形似飛機的小物拋入空間，動作令人想起童年摺紙飛機的天真爛漫，但在此卻帶有更陰暗的意味。母親般的人物張開嘴巴，準備吞下其中一件物體，在危險觸及她所保護的人之前先將它吞噬。他說：「我不禁想起政府與政治領袖有時彷彿把擁有巨大毀滅力量的東西當成玩具般戲弄。後果卻落在那些對相關決策幾乎沒有任何影響力的兒童、母親、老人，以及病患者身上。」

他的作品如《Of What Once Was》（2026年）與《Safe Slumber》（2025年）中反覆出現家庭室內空間，其心理張力並非來自刻意的設計，而是源於繪畫本身的行為。他說：「當你否定一些我們通常理解的自然法則，例如透視、重力，或物件理應如何佔據空間，並開始打破這些法則時，某種張力幾乎會自然產生。」

在其畫作中，別具特色地比例修長的人體佔據畫面中央，往往跪著或坐著，身體幾乎觸及畫框的邊界。在《Of What Once Was》裡，一名女性人物的背部隆起成巨大的弧形，包圍著構圖中央四名人物交纏的四肢，營造出一種動態。烏爾蓋薩解釋道：「我著迷於人物並非只是懸浮在一個房間裡，而是在時間與空間之中移動的這個想法。也許那些漂浮的人物正逐漸遠離曾經定義他們的事物，只是在經歷另一種狀態。我更感興趣的是讓他們停留在那個不確定的空間裡，介乎曾經的自己與正在成為的自己之間。」

烏爾蓋薩的畫布表面記錄了他的創作過程，粗獷、帶有動勢的筆觸與細緻而經過刻意處理的部分並置。一些藝術家希望觀者注意的元素，會透過色彩與質感加以誇張。他說：「一幅畫剛開始時，我通常畫得非常快，帶著衝動與動勢。但隨著畫作逐漸發展，這種速度會慢慢被更多思考所取代。我會放慢下來，在較小的區域裡創作，更加注重細節。」自發與控制之間的張力並非事先計劃，而是在創作過程中自然浮現。這種方式也映照了他作品中的主題張力：親密與距離、家園與移民、個人身份與集體生活。

在香港這座本身便由流動與轉變所定義的城市裡，這種共鳴顯得格外強烈。烏爾蓋薩筆下那些被困在離開與歸屬之間的人物，直接訴說著一種懸置於不同世界之間的感受。「我們從童年走向青春期，從青春期走向成年。我們生活在一個地方，然後離開它前往另一個地方。我們成為某種人，然後又轉變成另一種人。」他說。「在這些轉變之中，究竟有甚麼能夠留下來，而我們曾經是誰，又有多少能夠一直與我們同行？也許留下來的，只是一道痕跡、一段記憶，或某個過去狀態的碎片。」

在烏爾蓋薩的畫作中，離開從來不是一次乾脆利落的割裂。它始終處於未完結的情感狀態之中。與其說是一件事件，不如說是一種狀態。「未決之離」追問的是：我們會帶著甚麼同行、又會將甚麼留在身後，以及記憶如何隨我們進入當下，並繼續走向更遠的地方。