A companion to the above work, titled Exodus (No War) (2024), repeats the overall distressed and distressing design but this time its dominant hues are black, white, green and red. The Palestinian flag’s colours are inspired by the thirteenth century Arab poet Safi a-Din al-Hili’s verse: White are our deeds, black are our battles, Green are our fields, red are our swords. This time ‘NO’ and ‘WAR’ are scraped into the mottled void at the centre of the coloured rings. And in the same heavy black but again intermittently visible lettering, the word ‘EXODUS’ tumbles through the composition. The work pulses with both ancient Israelites flight from Egypt and current forced migration out of Gaza.

The vying visual elements – scratched or other wisely compromised text, the bold gestural versus chance mark-making, screams of colour and iterative black, white and grey – all create a tense palimpsest, nothing is certain, everything is in constant flux. This is a visual manifestation of Ellis’ thematic concern, namely his ongoing, and uneasy investigation into the human race’s capacity to repeat history, and rarely in a good way. It’s work that reflects, and reflects on, contemporary antagonisms – cultural and political enmity, violent conflict, seismic societal shifts, social unrest – but reminds us these human blind spots, weaknesses and antagonisms are deeply embedded in us, both in terms time and human temperament.