Ermias Kifleyesus’ work engages with themes of migration, cultural exchange, and the legacies of colonialism. For decades, he has developed methods for gathering images and phrases from others, collecting doodles from phone booths or snippets of spontaneous conversations, which become compositional elements in his layered paintings. This exchange-based process creates a form of social practice within a medium often associated with solitude.
In "Story & Time", an image of the Sainte Catherine church is overlaid with phrases gathered during several days of interaction nearby. The results form a kind of public poetry: “the most humane way to kill a crab”; “the bite of a friend is better than the kiss of an enemy.” Kifleyesus’ visual language draws from Belgian old masters and his Ethiopian heritage, while also recalling artists like Pierre Alechinsky and the Situationists, who used calligraphy, found language, and urban intervention to challenge social norms and reflect shared experience.

Ermias Kifleyesus trained at Addis Ababa University’s Alle School of Fine Arts and Design, studying under the influential painter Tadesse Mesfin. As a multidisciplinary artist, Kifleyesus works across various media—including large-scale paper collages, mixed-media canvases, fresco-style murals, video installations, and intricate metal sculptures. His practice explores and deconstructs images to investigate the human condition alongside themes of cultural identity, migration, and post-colonial legacies. Kifleyesus has exhibited widely at major institutions such as Bozar Centre for Fine Arts (Brussels), M HKA (Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp), Museum of Modern Art (Warsaw), Sharjah Art Foundation (UAE), and La Triennale di Milano (Italy). His work has featured in international art fairs and exhibitions focusing on contemporary African art. He has been recognized through residencies and awards, including support from the Flemish Community and various international art foundations.