Become a My Ocula member for exclusive access to contemporary art and personalised artist recommendations.
Join Us Sign In
The Art World in Focus
Clear
Ficre Ghebreyesus

FICRE GHEBREYESUS

Map / Quilt Galerie Lelong 8 September–22 October 2022 38 Avenue Matignon, Paris
Overview Location
Request Exhibition Preview
Press Release

Ficre Ghebreyesus’ works are nourished by his rich experience as a citizen of the world. Born in Eastern Africa, in Eritrea, at the beginning of the Independence War (1961–1991), his mother urged him to flee as a teenager and he became a refugee in several different successive countries: Sudan, Italy, Germany. He ultimately settled in the U.S. where he received a degree from the Yale School of Art (and, upon graduation, the Carol Schlossberg prize for Excellence in Painting).

Ficre Ghebreyesus was actively engaged in Eritrea’s struggle for independence, while studying art at the Art Students League and Robert Blackburn Printmaking Studio, both in New York. Ghebreyesus spoke seven languages, played multiple instruments and earned a living as the chef of the popular restaurant he co-founded and co-owned: Caffé Adulis, in New Haven, Connecticut. While living there, he married and had two sons.

Operating between figuration and abstraction, fluidly passing from the one to the other, Ghebreyesus’ oil or acrylic paintings evoke the fluid and serpentine forms of dreams, memories, folk tales. Transient figures can be glimpsed, caught in the midst of vividly colourful constructions. A school of fish suggests a group of human figures, a boat emerges from intertwined shapes reminiscent of Eritrean weavings. His refusal of borders and of divisions seems to stem from an identity and a home that were continually evolving.The gallery is pleased to be exhibiting Ghebreyesus’s work in France for the first time. The Paris exhibition is dominated by two large abstract, vividly coloured Map Quilt paintings from 1999, and as their titles suggest their imagery simultaneously evokes an abstracted geography or landscape and the patterns and colours of Eritrean textiles. Also included are pastels from the 1990s, as well as a series of small delicate canvases in which landscapes merging into abstraction alternate with scenes peopled with human silhouettes, animals or flowers.

Although Ghebreyesus rarely exhibited his work in his lifetime, institutional exhibitions began in 2018 at the Museum of the African Diasporain San Francisco.

His work is now included in several prominent museum collections including the Baltimore Museum of Art, Glenstone Museum, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Studio Museum in Harlem, Rollins Museum of Art and Yale University Art Gallery. Galerie Lelong & Co. has represented his work since 2019 and organised his first New York solo exhibition in 2020. The 2022 Venice Biennale exhibition The Milk of Dreams curated by Cecilia Alemani offers Ghebreyesus’s work an international resonance.

Ficre Ghebreyesus was born in Asmara, Eritrea, in 1962; he passed away in New Haven, Connecticut (USA), in 2012. Writer and poet Elizabeth Alexander’s award-winning memoir The Light of the World chronicles her husband Ghebreyesus’s life and work. The Ficre Ghebreyesus: Gate to the Blue exhibition catalogue is published by Galerie Lelong & Co.

Read More

Installation Views

About the Artist

Ficre Ghebreyesus (1962–2012) was an Eritrean-American painter whose richly coloured, dreamlike canvases move fluidly between figuration and abstraction. Working mainly in acrylic and oil on canvas, he developed a distinctive visual language in which landscapes, seascapes, textiles, and architecture merge into non-linear scenes that resemble memories or dreams. His paintings explore migration, exile, Black diasporic experience, and the search for home, drawing on the culture and scenery of Eritrea as well as European and American art. During his lifetime his work circulated largely among family, friends, and a close community, with wider attention only emerging after his death.

View Artist Profile Ficre Ghebreyesus contemporary artist
About the Gallery
Galerie Lelong is located in Paris and New York. It was founded by Jacques Dupin, Daniel Lelong and Jean Frémon.

The Paris gallery has been exhibiting recent works from artists of international standing since 1981. The 1980s were notable for artists who went on to become household names, including Joan Miró, Antoni Tàpies, Francis Bacon, Louise Bourgeois, Eduardo Chillida, Paul Rebeyrolle, Pierre Alechinsky, but also for the next generation of artists: Konrad Klapheck, Jan Dibbets, Donald Judd, Robert Ryman, Richard Serra, Jannis Kounellis, Arnulf Rainer, Nicola De Maria and Jan Voss.

In the 1990s, the gallery hosted artists who represented major movements in contemporary art: Sean Scully, Günther Förg, Andy Goldsworthy, Ernest Pignon-Ernest, Antonio Saura. The gallery also increased international recognition of the work of Ana Mendieta.

Since the turn of the century, Galerie Lelong has accentuated the geographical and expressive diversity of its artists: from sculpture and objects by Jaume Plensa, David Nash, Wolfgang Laib, Kiki Smith, Rebecca Horn, Barry Flanagan to installations by Barthélémy Toguo and Lin Tianmiao, without forgetting painting, namely David Hockney, Robert Motherwell, Kate Shepherd, Nalini Malani, Nancy Spero, Juan Uslé, Leon KossoffLeon Kossoff.

Galerie Lelong has a large publishing department which produces and distributes engravings, lithographs, digital prints and multiple objects, and collates these works in catalogues raisonnés.

It produces monumental sculptures to order for public spaces and private clients.

The gallery is present at the leading international contemporary art fairs (Art Basel, Art Basel Miami Beach, Art Basel Hong Kong, Fiac Paris, Frieze London, Frieze New York, Arco Madrid, Art Brussels, Expo Chicago...).

The directors of the gallery are Jean Frémon, Daniel Lelong and Patrice Cotensin in Paris and Mary Sabbatino in New York.
View Gallery Profile
Address
38 avenue Matignon
Paris
France
Opening Hours
Tues - Sat, 11am - 7pm
(1)
Paris 38 avenue Matignon
Galerie Lelong contemporary art gallery in 38 Avenue Matignon Paris France
Galerie Lelong
38 avenue Matignon, Paris, France
+33 171 722 699
http://www.galerie-lelong.com

Opening hours
Tues - Sat, 11am - 7pm
Magazine Gallery Platform Advisory
Ocula Magazine

A respected voice in contemporary art discourse.

Focusing on ambitious storytelling and insightful art-world commentary. Ocula Magazine publishes in-depth interviews, critical essays and timely analysis on the artists, exhibitions and ideas driving the global art world.

 Learn more about Ocula Magazine Learn more about Ocula Magazine Ocula Gallery Platform

Showcasing the best of the art world.

Ocula partners with galleries from around the world to highlight their artists, artworks and exhibitions. Gallery membership is by application and invitation, with each member vetted by an independent panel.

 Learn more about Ocula Membership Learn more about Ocula Membership Ocula Advisory

Specialises in the sale of major artworks.

Led by a team with deep ties to the world’s leading auction houses, galleries and collectors. Ocula’s advisory team offers bespoke services to high-net-worth clients from around the world who are looking to acquire the best of contemporary and modern art.

 Learn more about our team and services Learn more about Ocula Advisory
The art world in focus