'People like my work because it's not perfect,' says Ethiopian-born Olana Janfa . 'I like it when it's not straight – people pay attention more.'
One day last year 30-year-old artist Olana Janfa told his girlfriend Leanne Clancey he needed some orange paint for a picture he had in mind. No problem, she said. You've got red and yellow.That's when Clancey realised her partner had no idea about mixing colours. In fact, he had no idea about anything much to do with art because as a child in war-torn Ethiopia, art education hadn't figured.
Soon he was getting scraps of timber from a friend, and painting his vivid pictures embellished with funny phrases on them. He started, he says, "because I wanted just one piece of art for my house. I painted for this wall. I painted for that wall. And then it started to be full so I moved to the shed."
Among those paying attention was Kylie Zerbst, owner and chief designer of Melbourne fashion label Obus, which will next week launch its autumn range – consisting of prints based on Janfa's work.
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