Tekleab attended the School of Fine Arts in Addis Ababa, becoming active in the student resistance movement during the revolution late in the 1970s. She was released in 1989 and emigrated to join family in the United States, receiving her Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1992 and her Master of Fine Arts in 1995 from Howard University.
Fleeing Ethiopia, she became embroiled in the country"s war with Somalia, being imprisoned in a labor camp for close to a decade. She produced her Punishment Series of works as part of her thesis project "Humanity In Descent: Visual Images Of Human Suffering". Tekleab has taught at Montgomery College in Takoma Park, Maryland, Northern Virginia Community College, and Howard University.
She is currently a Professor of Art at Savannah College of Art and Design in Savannah, Georgia.
In 2001, Tekleab worked with Alexander Boghossian on a commission called Nexus for the Wall of Representation at the Embassy of Ethiopia in Washington, District of Columbia The work is an aluminum relief sculpture (365 x 1585 cm) mounted on the granite wall of the embassy.
