Aida Buzuayehu - International Community School of Addis Ababa

INTRODUCING THE ARTIST
Desta Hagos was born in 1952 in a city by the name of Adwa. At the age of nine,
she moved to the capital, Addis Ababa with her family and was enrolled in the Etege
Menen Middle School (Woldearege, 16). She began to fall in love with art at the age of
five when she used to pick flowers from the garden to look at. “When I was just a tiny
child I remember that I adored flowers and plants, and I loved to cut flowers so that I
could look at and preserve their beauty at home,” she said while reminiscing her
merciless love and cruel affection for beauty and colors. It was her father, one of her
greatest muses in life that amended her atrocious habits. Her father would tell her,
“Don’t kill the flowers; they have life like you. I will buy you coloring pencils and you
can draw them exactly as they were alive.” (Woldearege, 16). Desta Hagos had a
‘beautiful, love-filled and happy’ childhood while growing up in Ethiopia with four
other siblings (Hagos, March 2011). At the age of fourteen, Hagos entered the
International Children’s Arts Competition organized by the Indian embassy and won
first place. She submitted three paintings, two of which were a landscape painting and
one of a blind man (Hagos, March 2011).
“Blind Man”
Desta Hagos
Tempera on paper
1966
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