Spotlight: Multidisciplinary artist Ermias Kifleyesus

[...] Rakeb Sile says that their mission is to elevate forgotten art histories and Ermias Kifleyesus’s work speaks profoundly to this.

Sile says: “We met Ermias a couple of years ago. He was a graduate student from Alle School of Fine Arts and Design and a student of the modernist legend, Tadesse Mesfin, like many other of our artists. We were instantly drawn to his work because it explores the complex and tense relationship between Africa and the West – particularly the way in which European and North American countries have appropriated African aesthetics and commodities. He weaves this throughout his paintings through the representation of various relevant narratives, such as the origins of coffee and the flower industry through to the 2021 football World Cup, as a means to explore the universal within the specific.” [...]