Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is very pleased to announce YRNEH GABON: Spirit Leads Me, a multimedia exhibition of painting, sculpture, and performance art, on view in Gallery 2 and Gallery 3 from February 24 through April 13, 2024. An opening reception will be held on Saturday, February 24th, from 4 to 7 p.m., and a FRIEZE Weekend Brunch will be held the following Saturday, March 2nd, from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. In 2023, Yrneh Gabon became the first artist-in-residence at The Museum of Black Civilizations, a national museum in Dakar, Senegal, where he initiated a body of work based on the boubou, an elaborate flowing caftan-like garment that is a manifestation of the spirit of traditional Senegalese fashion. The boubou’s African origins can be traced to the 8th century, and the word “boubou” is a French distortion of the Wolof word mbubb. In essence, the boubou is both a metaphor for colonization; and, simultaneously, a sign of sartorial resistance against the imperative to adopt Western dress. Gabon designed three grand boubous with fabric selected from across the continent, and decorated them with dragonflies, a motif that first appeared in his work during the severe California drought of 2016. For Gabon, the dragonfly is a symbol of the precarity of life in a time of grave ecological crisis. The exhibition Spirit Leads Me presents the boubous that Gabon designed at The Museum of Black Civilisations along with a series of visually rhythmic paintings in which they are depicted worn by himself and subjects the artist befriended during his trips to the African continent (such as the Senegalese twins Sena and Sana, and the Jamaican supermodel and fashion designer Lois Samuels). In addition, the exhibition includes four paintings that highlight the role of African children in a fast-changing Africa and the criticality of empowering them by encouraging curiosity and the search for purpose and prospect. These works are joined by several mixed-media floor and wall sculptures employing a range of materials, including bronze, steel, crystals, salt, clay, wood, glass, water, and paint. Throughout these works, Gabon excavates and reveals layers of dislocation and destruction to address political, economic, racial and religious subjugation, and the violence in the history of Africa and the slave trade. Like the dragonfly which symbolizes mutability and tenacity, Gabon’s work brings Africans from the continent and the diaspora together, connected across time and place by the umbilical cord of history, to communicate messages imbued with spirituality, empowerment and survival. Yrneh Gabon (b. 1967, Jamaica) received his MFA from Otis College of Arts and Design in 2017 and BFA from the University of Southern California in 2012. Gabon was awarded a 2023-24 Fulbright Fellowship and is currently in residence in Botswana, in Southern Africa, conducting research into the impact of ecological climate change on local society, the Okavango Delta, and La Makgadikgadi Salt Pans. In 2022, he became the first artist in residence at the Museum of Black Civilisations in Dakar, Senegal. Yrneh Gabon is based in Los Angeles, CA. Selected solo and group exhibitions include Collective Conversations Matter (2023) at Matter Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; The Beautiful Ones Are Not Yet Born (2022), Maison AfriKin, Miami, Fl; At the Table (2022), Armory Center for the Arts, Pasadena, CA; Vernacular A la Monde (2022), Little Haiti Cultural Center, Miami, FL; Adornment and Artifacts (2022), Getty Villa, Los Angeles, CA; A Salted Intermission: 14th Edition of the Dakar Biennale 2022, Palais De Justice; I’NDaff # Forger/Out of the Fire, De La Biennale De L’Art African Contemporain; Le Marche’ International Des Arts de Dakar, 14th Biennale De Dakar 2022; The Phoenix Project: Continuing the Dialogue from 1992 (2022), Korean Cultural Center Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA; Radical Propagations / Propagaciones Radicales (2022), 18th Street Arts Center, Santa Monica, CA. Recovery Justice: Being Well (2021), 18th Street Arts Center, Santa Monica, CA; Suturo Artists and Poems: Los Angeles (2020, online exhibition); Black Lives Matter (2020, online exhibition), El Camino College Art Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; Drive-By-Art / Public Art in This Moment of Social Distancing (2020), WEST of Western, Los Angeles, CA; Mojo Rising (2020), Ronald H. Silverman Fine Arts Gallery, Cal State LA, Los Angeles, CA; Facing Darkness (2020), 18th Street Arts Center, Santa Monica, CA; National Gallery of Art Summer Exhibition (2019), National Gallery of Jamaica, Kingston, Jamaica; African Civilisations: Continuous Creation of Humanity (2018), Musée des Civilisations Noires, Dakar, Senegal; Memba Mi Tell Yu (2017), Bolsky Otis College of Arts and Design, Los Angeles, CA; Visibly Invisible (2014-15), California African American Museum, Los Angeles, CA; Raíces y Símbolos Escondidos (2014), Foundación Sebastián, Mexico City, Mexico; among others. ____ "O living fountain that I crave, in bread of life I see her flame, in black of night." – from Benin Olukun chant Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is very pleased to present JUNE EDMONDS: Meditations on African Resilience, the artist’s third solo exhibition with the gallery, on view in Gallery 1 from February 24 through April 13, 2024. An opening reception will be held on Saturday, February 24th, from 4 to 7 p.m., and a FRIEZE Weekend Brunch will be held the following Saturday, March 2nd, from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. The artist will be present at both events. For over 35 years, June Edmonds has cultivated a practice that synthesizes abstraction, spirituality, and meditation with her ruminations and contemplations on her African American roots, Black history, and experience in America. Her paintings memorialize historic and contemporary figures and events with narratives that embody Black strength, endurance, joy, harmony, power, and resilience. Exploring the depth and breadth of color, Edmonds' paintings communicate a language uniquely her own, deconstructing symbols through repetitive linework and bands of color, visceral impasto textures, and a psychologically charged lexicon of brilliant color. Continuing her research-based explorations which previously have drawn from various cultural and art historical references to sacred geometries (such as the vesica piscis and the Adinkra symbols of West Africa) and led to the development of her celebrated Energy Circles series, Edmonds new paintings find inspiration in the emblem of the river leaf (ebe-amẹn) — an ancient and sacred quatrefoil used prominently in the Kingdom of Benin (also known as the Edo Kingdom or the Benin Empire), a pre-colonial kingdom in what is now southwestern Nigeria — to symbolize the power and regality of kings, healers, and deities, and as a spiritual symbol for unity, balance, and protection. Edmonds was drawn to this symbol during her studies of the 15th and 16th century Benin bronze plaques, where she noted the reccurring motif alongside relief figures illustrating stories of the Oba (king) and his royal court and the achievements of the Benin warriors and dynasties. These plaques served to record important historical events, good or bad, as well as instruct, unify, and establish the magnificence of the Benin Empire. The word for “to remember” (saeyama) in Edo, the language of Benin, translates as “to cast a motif in bronze.” Edmonds inspiration compelled her to adopt and adapt this symbol as a way to restore and reclaim its power in the present, and use it as a tool for resilience to its contemporary heirs, not just ancient African nobility. Edmonds notes, “I am using this inspired symbol to do the same, but the power and resilience is ours. It belongs to all of us. It always was ours. All we must do is learn and remember the greatness of our history. This body of work can be seen as a constellation that guides us to the freedom that can come from these meditations.” JUNE EDMONDS: Meditations on African Resilience presents a series of contemplations on the river leaf symbol, combined at times with the vesica piscis, in fields of color pulsing with subtle energy: circles within circles, overlapping depths of hue and intensity, and their echoing intersections, to induce an expansive range of chromatic awareness — what she calls “deep color” — exploring the deepest potentialities and experiences of color. Edmonds shares, “I believe that the deep color palette I'm continuing to delve into carries a profound and resonant quality, tapping into a part of our psyche linked to an ancient memory that exists within all of us.” June Edmonds (b. 1959, Los Angeles, CA) received her MFA from Tyler School of Art, Philadelphia, and a bachelor’s degree from San Diego State University. She also attended Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. Edmonds was recently awarded the 2023 MacDowell Spring-Summer Fellowship, Peterborough, NH; and the Ucross Foundation Spring Fellowship, Clearmont, Wyoming, among other prestigious awards, including the Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship in Fine Arts (2022), New York, NY; and the California Community Foundation Fellowship for Visual Art Fellows (2022), Los Angeles, CA. Edmonds has exhibited at The Getty Villa, Malibu, CA; Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA; Mead Art Museum, Amhurst, MA; Davis Museum of Art, Wellesley College, MA; Laband Art Gallery, Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, CA; California African American Museum, Los Angeles; Luckman Fine Art Gallery at Cal State Los Angeles; Watts Tower Art Center, Los Angeles, CA; Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery; Angels Gate Art Center, San Pedro, CA; Manhattan Beach Art Center, Manhattan Beach, CA; and Marche de I’art at the Dakar Biennial, Dakar, Senegal. Edmonds has also completed several works of public art with the city of Los Angeles and the Department of Cultural Affairs, including an installation at the MTA Pacific Station in Long Beach, CA. Edmonds paintings are held in notable collections throughout the United States including the Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA; California African American Museum, Los Angeles, CA; Mead Art Museum, Amhurst College, Amhurst, MA; Davis Museum, Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA; David Owsley Museum of Art at Ball State University, Muncie, IN; Kleefeld Contemporary Art Museum, California State University, Long Beach, CA; Embassy of Guatemala, U.S. Department of State; The Shah Garg Collection, New York, NY; Pamela J. Joyner and Alfred J. Giuffrida Collection, San Francisco, CA; The Pizzuti Collection, Columbus, OH; Jorge M. Pérez Collection, Miami, FL; Petrucci Family Foundation Collection of African-American Art, Asbury, NJ; Arthur Lewis Collection, Los Angeles, CA; Rodney M. Miller Collection, New York, NY; Michael Rubel Collection, Los Angeles, CA; David Rogath Collection, Greenwich, CT; and Kelly Williams and Andrew Forsyth Collection, Palm Beach, FL; among others.