After spending formative years living abroad in places like Canada, Yemen, and the United States, Aïda Muluneh returned to her home country of Ethiopia. She had been drawn to photography since high school and worked as a photojournalist for The Washington Post after graduating from Howard University. But her interest in photography as an art form led her to develop a fine art practice, as well.

Muluneh is known for the vibrant colors and direct gaze seen in works like The 99 Series. Pulling inspiration from body paint and tattooing in Ethiopian cultures and other societies around the world, she aims to share her own heritage and speak to shared practices globally. When asked why her photographs mostly feature women, she explained:

“I’m a woman, and I’m sharing my experience with the world. I can’t see myself doing that through a man’s body. I feel as though there’s a power in the gaze of the woman. Especially in Africa, women are our biggest assets. There’s an expression that if you teach something to a man, you teach one person, but if you teach something to a woman, you’re teaching the whole society.”

Image Description: One woman looks forward from the center of the photograph, flanked on either side by two transparent copies of herself seen from behind. These figures all overlap each other. The woman has African features. Her skin is painted white, with a line of black dots running from the crown of her forehead to the center of her chest. Her ears are painted bright red. Her hair is short, black, and curly, with some of the white paint coloring her hairline. The figures seen from behind have the same black dots running down their backs, starting at their hairlines. The figures are all wearing a sleeveless wrap with vertical black and white stripes and a red stripe in the middle. Their wraps overlap to create wavering lines and run in a solid band across the image. The backdrop is gray.