SEAN-KIERRE LYONS: In Battle Petals Fall
27.9 x 35.6 cm
'The Flower Warriors’s petals blow in the wind, eyes wide open with the complexities of life, never fixed but flowing, they bloom under rocks, grow through cracks with the audacity to call their deep wounds, scrapes, while they run, laugh and play. They shine brighter than oiled skin massaged by heavy hands and were able to plant roots even when being trampled by boots. Every day a new day but the ol’ razzle dazzle.'
-Diamond Stingily
Fortnight Institute is pleased to present, In Battle Petals Fall, a solo exhibition of recent drawings by Sean-Kierre Lyons. The flowers in Lyons’s drawing series By Any Means Necessary are the fierce and benevolent keepers of the forest, embodying a community rooted in resilience and reciprocity. Their radiant beauty at once attracting beneficial pollinators and distracting predators in a dance of colorful symbiosis. Lyon’s work recuperates the characters and cultural context that shapes Black American identity, examining the mutations of folkloric characters from the Antebellum period in the Southern United States (1812-15). With humor and searing acuity, their flower warriors examines histories of representation and ownership, imagining friends and loved ones as the ebullient figures of a Black Flower Forest.
The Flower Warriors’ petals blow in the wind, eyes wide open with the complexities of life, never fixed but flowing, they bloom under rocks, grow through cracks with the audacity to call their deep wounds, scrapes, while they run, laugh and play. They shine brighter than oiled skin massaged by heavy hands and were able to plant roots even when being trampled by boots. Every day a new day but the ol’ razzle dazzle. - Diamond Stingily
Fortnight Institute is pleased to present, In Battle Petals Fall, a solo exhibition of recent drawings by Sean-Kierre Lyons. The flowers in Lyons’s drawing series By Any Means Necessary are the fierce and benevolent keepers of the forest, embodying a community rooted in resilience and reciprocity. Their radiant beauty at once attracting beneficial pollinators and distracting predators in a dance of colorful symbiosis. Lyon’s work recuperates the characters and cultural context that shapes Black American identity, examining the mutations of folkloric characters from the Antebellum period in the Southern United States (1812-15). With humor and searing acuity, their flower warriors examines histories of representation and ownership, imagining friends and loved ones as the ebullient figures of a Black Flower Forest.
From this exhibition, donations will be made to the Herbal Mutual Aid Network, a grassroots organization providing free plant-based care for Black People seeking support due to the ongoing crisis of racial violence and injustice, and, to For the Gworls, a small organization raising money to actively fight to reduce homelessness rates in the Black transgender community, as well as lower the risk for affirmative surgeries being done in ways that put them at greater health risks.
Sean-Kierre Lyons (b. 1991, Salinas, NY) currently lives and works in New York City. They have exhibited their work in solo exhibitions at Larrie (New York) and NADA Miami. Their work has also been presented in group exhibitions at HOUSING (New York), BronxArtSpace (New York), OCHI PROJECTS (Los Angeles), AA|LA (Los Angeles), Kunstverein Munchen E.V. (Munich), among others. Lyons has a forthcoming two-person show with Alake Shilling at Larrie (New York) in 2021.
