LOS ANGELES — “Witness” is a bronze cast of the bottom half of Kelly Akashi’s face. The surface of the sculpture (from 2024–25) has an irregular patina that is unexpectedly beautiful. It was one of several elements in the artist’s current exhibition at Lisson Gallery that was recovered from the remains of her Altadena home and studio, one of thousands of structures destroyed during the recent Eaton and Palisades Fires. A bright red glass form seems to sprout from the face, resembling both blood vessels and the tendrils of a new plant.
This new body of work brings several threads from her previous pieces — an interest in longer-term, geological views of time (longue durée) and the use of inherited objects as a way to understand her family’s histories — together with the local and personal tragedy the artist experienced. Seeds and sprouts feature prominently throughout the exhibition, weaving a narrative about imagining, building, and nurturing new possibilities. Seeds contain the necessary components to grow into something much larger. They hold the promise of new life, the promise of a future.
I was particularly fascinated by the enlarged cast bronze Datura seed pods that dot the exhibition. Electrical wiring snakes out from these sculptures, tapering off into spiky, seed-shaped lights. One of them lies on the floor; beneath it is ash, presumably from the Eaton Fire, that dislodged and settled on the gallery floor during installation. “Devil’s Claw with Seeds” (2024–25) looks like some sort of alien skull, its horn-like protrusions protecting itself, and the seeds within, from the outside world.
Delayed by the fires, the exhibition opened on February 19, the 83rd anniversary of Executive Order 9066, which authorized the forced internment of Japanese Americans during WWII. In previous work, Akashi incorporated jewelry from her paternal grandmother as a way to examine the continued impact of her paternal grandparents’ internment across generations. For this show, the artist centers her maternal lineage, making use of lace doilies that belonged to her maternal grandmother. Designs taken from these doilies are repeated throughout the exhibition, most notably as patterns laser cut into the Corten steel plinths on which her sculptures rest. Richard Serra used the same type of steel; here, it’s Akashi’s cheeky way of literally carving women into a medium and canon typically associated with White male artists. Other sculptures sit directly atop these doilies, as if to acknowledge how the stories of our ancestors have set the foundational conditions for our lived experiences.
“Monument (Shelter)” (2025) is the exhibition’s key work. Two bronze hands, resting upon Akashi’s grandmother’s lace doily, hold a turquoise-colored seed pod. These hands — casts of the artist’s — cover and cradle the seed. Did they create it? Are they revealing it to us? Or are they protecting the seed? Perhaps all three can be true. This, to me, forms the show’s central theme — how our family histories, communities, and personal histories help us imagine, build, and protect new futures for ourselves, even when outside forces seek to limit what is possible.
Both Ijeoma Oluo and adrienne maree brown write about how limiting imagination is a tool of White supremacy. Being unable to imagine new structures locks us within existing institutions and hierarchies, confining progress to incremental changes within these same structures without ever moving beyond them. In the aftermath of local and personal tragedy, and in the midst of the unprecedented and systematic destruction of our government institutions, Akashi shows us the importance of what is perhaps the most basic function of art — the ability to imagine and create new possibilities, to see the potential futures in a seed.
Kelly Akashi continues at Lisson Gallery (1037 North Sycamore Avenue, Hollywood, Los Angeles) through March 29. The exhibition was organized by the gallery.
