Art Basel: Unlimited: Ficre Ghebreyesus

Making its public debut at Art Basel Unlimited 2024, Ficre Ghebreyesus’s monumental, unstretched painting Untitled (2008) is a stunning chromatic exploration of pinks, blues, and purples, drawing from the bright palette of Ghebreyesus’s mature work. The abstraction evokes an intricate weaving, or a landscape populated with detailed passages. Allusions to windows and portals throughout combined with the fluid, watery composition are reminders of the movement in the artist’s life caused by war and displacement. This sense of journeying and transformation is underscored by the painting’s many and varied horizons. With its grand scale and intended proximity to the wall, Untitled also recalls the religious frescoes and murals of the artist’s childhood in Asmara, Eritrea.