Ficre Ghebreyesus, who died in 2012, made vertiginous paintings celebrating family, the diaspora and his own turbulent story. His first European solo exhibition charts this remarkable journey

What is home? What does it mean to belong? For Eritrea-born artist, activist and chef Ficre Ghebreyesus, who fled war in his homeland at the age of 16 and landed on US shores in 1981, these were vital questions that played out in his vibrant, often dreamlike canvases. “Painting was the miracle, the final act of defiance through which I exorcised the pain and reclaimed my sense of place, my moral compass, and my love for life,” the artist wrote in 2000, in his application for a masters in fine art at Yale School of Art.

Ghebreyesus, who died suddenly of a heart attack aged 50 in 2012, left behind more than 800 paintings. These were barely exhibited in his lifetime but have garnered acclaim posthumously, presented at the 2022 Venice Biennale and in a handful of US shows. Now Ghebreyesus will have his first solo European exhibition at Modern Art gallery in London, made up of 25 canvases from the 1990s to 2011, many of which have never been displayed publicly.