Continuing through May 30, 2026

This exhibition of 23 color photographs subdivides into several series: the “Cross Colour” group of hallucinatory images from the 1990s, two sets of frontal portraits under the titles “surmise” and “[sur]passing,” and the most recent works selected from a group called “syzygy, the vision” that features a solitary figure in an orange and blue spacesuit awkwardly “exploring” depopulated landscapes, some urban, others natural. These groupings may seem disparate, but they are linked by Lola Flash’s longstanding interest in re-examining and highlighting the complex fluidities operating between heteronormative racial and gender constructs. 

The six works from the “Cross Colour” series are color cibachrome prints that harken back to the time just prior to the emergence of digital image editing software. In those days, extreme variations of normal darkroom procedure were being explored through multiple exposures, solarization, dodging and burning. The resulting photographic works were in retrospect something like one-of-a kind monoprints akin to Man Ray’s “Photograms.” A good example here is titled “K is for KKK, Provincetown, Mass” (1993), showing two muscular male figures wearing Ku Klux Klan hoods (without robes) standing in front of a cross. The camera looks up at them while the solarized double-exposures enhance the sinister connotations of the image. The yellow-orange background further conjures up Andreas Serrano’s famous “Piss Christ” (1986). 

Most of the works in Flash’s exhibition are portraits of various kinds, all archival pigment prints made from digital sources, hailing from three related series. The “[sur]passing Series” shows sharply focused, centrally placed figures set against out-of-focus backgrounds, suggesting studio backdrops rather than public locations. In fact, they are real locations, not that the difference matters much to the images. Here, the point is in how the figures both conceal and reveal themselves to the camera’s gaze. 

For example, in portraits of “Carrie Mae Weems ([sur]passing Series)” (2008) and “Amy Sherald ([sur]passing Series)” (2019), the well-known artists look straight ahead, appearing as if they are about to turn away from the camera while momentarily facing it with deadpan faces and, in Sherald’s case, eyes covered by large sunglasses. There is a police line-up vibe, as though the figures are on the verge of trying to exonerate themselves from some unstated accusation. A similar sensibility is foregrounded in the works from the “surmise Series.” In this group the backgrounds are flat white, while the positioning of the figures suggests defiant self-celebration rather than partial self-concealment. For example, “Mzz Kimberly, London (surmise Series)” (2011) takes a sidewise view of a masculine looking woman who appears startled by the presence of the camera. Her red-orange hair and gloved hand provide a striking contrast to her eye-gripping black clothing.

The most recent works are six examples from Flash’s “syzygy, the vision Series,” which adds a new Afrofuturist wrinkle to the artist’s ongoing project of re-examining race and gender norms. Like the previously mentioned works, these also feature figures, but they are much smaller in relation to the pictorial spaces that they inhabit. The model for these figures is Flash herself, but we cannot be sure because they are covered with orange coveralls and a blue helmet. The clear suggestion is one of an alienated exploration of a strange and perhaps hostile world. Images range from the figure peering up at a convoluted tree in “The Little Prince, Sindia, Senegal (syzygy, the vision Series)” (2024) to the same character praying inside of an otherwise empty New York subway car in “(I Pray, Manhattan, NY)” (2024). The largest and single most memorable work in the exhibition is titled “Divinity, Brighton, UK (syzygy, the vision Series)” (2020), showing the helmet-crowned figure standing tall in an upturned boat hull painted in a bright sky blue. The whole composition suggests a kind of a shrine where the figure is cast as a devotional icon, hands clasped in prayer, with the presence of an extraterrestrial messiah.