Altering Memories

Altering Memories | Ermias Ekube

Almas Art Foundation was proud to present Altering Memories, a solo exhibition of works by Ermias Ekube at The Africa Centre, London. Spanning multiple decades and geographies — from Addis Ababa to Asmara, Nairobi, and Sweden — the exhibition traced Ekube’s remarkable journey of artistic and personal reinvention across displacement and diaspora.

Featuring salvaged early works from Addis Ababa, lithographs and paintings from his Asmara period, and recent pieces created in Sweden (courtesy of Ed Cross Fine Art), Altering Memories offered an intimate view into the evolution of an artist whose practice is deeply rooted in memory, identity, and human resilience. A documentary film on Ekube, produced by Almas Art Foundation, accompanied the exhibition, expanding the dialogue between the artist’s life and work.

Born in 1970 in Addis Ababa and trained at the Alle School of Fine Arts and Design, Ekube has developed a visual language that weaves together realism, poetry, and symbolism. His portraits and compositions juxtapose the perceived truth of figurative painting with reflective surfaces, objects, and fragments of text — evoking the instability of memory and the continual act of reimagining the self.