EXHIBITION // AWOL ERIZKU // SEAN KELLY GALERY // LOS ANGELES

© Awol Erizku - Sean Kelly Gallery - Los Angeles

Awol Erizku - Moon, Turn the Flames...Gently Gently Away from June 16 to July 03. 2025

Sean Kelly Gallery
1357 N Highland Ave
Los Angeles CA 90028

www.skny.com

Sean Kelly is delighted to present Moon, Turn the Flames…Gently Gently Away, Awol Erizku’s inaugural solo exhibition at Sean Kelly, Los Angeles. Continuing his critical investigation of identity politics, resistance, and abstraction, Erizku offers a cosmology of visual language that disrupts conventional narratives of representation. The exhibition presents new photographs, neon installations, and sculptures that underscore Erizku’s distinctive approach to symbolism and cross-cultural dialogue.

Through a sophisticated interplay of diverse mediums, Awol Erizku’s unique lexicon recontextualizes historical narratives. A series of neon works further expand Erizku’s investigation of identity and symbolism. These new works reflect the artist’s exploration of beauty within everyday life. One neon reimagines the iconic Los Angeles Dodgers logo in vibrant, Pan-African colors, subverting expectations of branding and belonging.

While another features the Olympic rings rendered in the five colors that Malcolm X identified as symbolic of the world’s skin tones—red, black, brown, white, and yellow—offering a powerful meditation on unity, race, and representation.

NO ICE is a striking neon addition to the artist’s enduring lexicon, introducing a multifaceted symbol ripe for interpretation within today’s volatile political climate. Within the broader constellation of works in this exhibition, NO ICE ignites a more urgent dialogue, illuminating the fraught landscape of race relations in America with unflinching intensity.

“I grew up between worlds, anchored by African roots and shaped by American realities. That duality instilled in me a deep skepticism toward singular narratives. My upbringing taught me grit and the imperative to question systems that render you invisible.” - Awol Erizku

Erizku’s new photographic works reflect his continued resistance to the commodification of the Black body. Moving beyond direct figurative representation, they weave together Pan-African iconography, botanical symbolism, and profoundly personal narratives to explore themes of race, identity, and systemic injustice.

In the Transfixion series recurring imagery from Erizku’s practice is projected onto delicate blooms such as orchids and Asiatic lilies. Drawing on French Martiniquais philosopher, Édouard Glissant’s concept of imagination as a dynamic force within the web of Relation, Erizku harnesses his creative process to envision new possibilities, forging visual narratives that resist oppressive frameworks and construct liberated futures rooted in Black identity and cultural multiplicity.......