Merikokeb Berhanu’s luminous canvases conjure worlds suspended between the cellular and the celestial. Born and raised in Addis Ababa, she received her BFA from the Alle School of Fine Arts and Design in 2002 before relocating to the United States in 2017. Her move profoundly transformed her palette from earthy, rooted tones to the vibrant hues of her current work. New symbols – a circuit board structure, the skeletal remains of fish – also began to emerge throughout Merikokeb’s paintings as she grappled with the implications of a society estranged from nature. Guided by biomorphic intuition and ecological awareness, her compositions invite the viewer into imagined realms at once otherworldly and immediate.

Merikokeb was featured at the 59th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia (2022) and has since been the subject of solo exhibitions at James Cohan, New York (2025), Esther Schipper, Berlin (2025), and Bortolami Gallery, New York (2024), as well as a forthcoming solo at Esther Schipper, Seoul (2026). Her work was featured in the acclaimed travelling exhibition Ethiopia at the Crossroads (Walters Art Museum; Peabody Essex Museum; Toledo Museum of Art, 2023–24). Her paintings are held in the permanent collections of Tate (London), San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Baltimore Museum of Art, Denver Art Museum, High Museum of Art (Atlanta, GA), Peabody Essex Museum (Salem, MA), and Inhotim Museum (Brazil), among others.