U.S. Department of State · Public domain

An Ethiopian American painter known for large-scale, densely layered abstractions that overlay architectural drawings, maps, and gestural marks to trace the effects of urban and political upheaval — including Mogamma, four monumental canvases responding to Cairo's Tahrir Square, and a 2024 stained-glass window for the Obama Presidential Center. She won a MacArthur Fellowship in 2005, had a Whitney Museum retrospective in 2021, and set a $10.7 million auction record for a living woman artist in 2023.