Image 1 of 1
Image 1 of 1
Image 1 of 1
Image 1 of 1
Segun Caezar
“ALL MY FRIENDS ARE KOI”
16” x 20”
Oil on Panel
“ALL MY FRIENDS ARE KOI,” a young Black girl gazes directly at the viewer, her eyes framed in gold, her cheek pressed gently against a koi fish. The stark grey background sets the tone for a quiet confrontation between innocence and history.
The koi, long associated with perseverance and transformation, carries layered meaning. It functions here as a silent companion, an ancestral witness, and a bearer of stories too long ignored. Its presence is central to the work’s exploration of isolation, beauty, and inherited memory. Through the subject’s stillness, Caezar asks what freedom looks like when shaped by survival.
Positioned within Songs of Sovereignty, this connection deepens: the koi becomes a metaphor for claiming space and thriving despite displacement, showing how sovereignty endures through adaptation, memory, and the refusal to forget.
Segun Caezar
“ALL MY FRIENDS ARE KOI”
16” x 20”
Oil on Panel
“ALL MY FRIENDS ARE KOI,” a young Black girl gazes directly at the viewer, her eyes framed in gold, her cheek pressed gently against a koi fish. The stark grey background sets the tone for a quiet confrontation between innocence and history.
The koi, long associated with perseverance and transformation, carries layered meaning. It functions here as a silent companion, an ancestral witness, and a bearer of stories too long ignored. Its presence is central to the work’s exploration of isolation, beauty, and inherited memory. Through the subject’s stillness, Caezar asks what freedom looks like when shaped by survival.
Positioned within Songs of Sovereignty, this connection deepens: the koi becomes a metaphor for claiming space and thriving despite displacement, showing how sovereignty endures through adaptation, memory, and the refusal to forget.