The Two Gamblers

A crucial and unique voice in Ethiopian art, Ephrem Solomon’s works fuse carved board with mixed media to immortalise the characters, objects and happenings discovered in his hometown of Addis Ababa. Solomon’s pieces bloom from his educational background in fine art and graphic design. An often monochrome, striking two-dimensional flatness accentuates the faces of Solomon’s sitters, as well as the various bricolage of everyday life, against an indistinct flurry of text from snippets of old newspapers. Two separate textual sources form the backdrop of The Two Gamblers (2013), which is unusual in its depiction of a duo, rather than the more common, solitary figure found in Solomon’s works. Isolation and autonomy are notable thematic streaks flowing through many of these single portraits, and in The Two Gamblers there is a similar melancholy. Here, the two imposing men seem withdrawn, concealing a secret from the vibrant city that Solomon so vivaciously captures.