A Hug From The Art World is pleased to present Sejiro Avoseh’s

FACES OF NOWHERE in collaboration with Kravets Wehby Gallery.

FACES OF NOWHERE will open concurrently at Kravets Wehby Gallery and A Hug From The Art World on Thursday, June 13, with a reception from 6-8PM.

On the occasion of Avoseh’s second solo exhibition, Kravets Wehby Gallery has invited A Hug from the Art World to take part in a dual-location exhibition. Visitors are welcome to an aperitif at Kravets Wehby Gallery, 521 West 21st Street, and then a digestif if you like, two blocks away at A Hug from the Art World, 515 West 19th Street.

Nigerian-born artist Sejiro Avoseh (b. 1990) recently brought his family from their hometown of Lagos to the United Kingdom in pursuit of artistic and economic opportunity. Always looking towards the future, he nonetheless ruminates on the source of his discomfort in Nigeria— colonialism, particularly as it relates to his current home in the UK.

In FACES OF NOWHERE, Avoseh alternates between realities. Existing in liminal spaces, his paintings recall tender moments in his new life with friends and family intertwined with internal conflict. The paintings convey transience, their bold colors evoking emotional extremity. He confronts rage in these paintings, all the while holding space for joy. His seamless layering of images is a nod to Abstract Expressionism, amplified by gestural, intense brushstrokes.

As life unfolds, he condenses a range of fervor onto and beyond the canvas. In “Pose at untitled,” he captures the excitement of his children visited his solo booth at the art fair in Miami. Eyes, legs, and mouths slowly reveal themselves in the frantic energy of the thick impasto. In "Still looking back," there is a tension between Avoseh’s confrontation of the immense cultural losses in Nigeria at the hands of colonialists and the artist’s undaunted, blazing optimism.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Sejiro Avoseh was born in 1990 in Lagos, Nigeria. He earned a Higher and National Diploma in Arts & Industrial Design from Lagos State Polytechnic in 2013 and Master of Arts from the University for the Creative Arts in Canterbury, UK. Sejiro's paintings have been exhibited internationally at Afikaris Gallery, Paris; Angels and Muse, Lagos; the Green Family Art Foundation, Dallas; and KravetsWehby Gallery, New York. He completed a residency at The Cabin LA in 2022 and currently lives and works in Canterbury, England.