Following her critically acclaimed LA debut with Lisson Gallery, Kelly Akashi presents a new body of sculptural work in New York that shows how loss and memory are handled and transformed over time. Akashi’s creations in the West 24th Street space are evocative chronologies in deeply personal and universal reflections. A gentle presence inspired by nature and traditional art, rendered in bronze, Corten steel, flamed glass and stone, offers fragile moments of beauty, care and patience—the artist’s ephemeral forms retain a sense of organic vulnerability and change.
Inspiring this body of work is Akashi’s recent engagement with the site of his former home and studio, destroyed by the 2025 LA wildfires. There, he saw nature coming back, with resilience, in the midst of destruction. “This work”—a glass engraving of a plant—”began with the growth of a weed in my yard, a mallow plant, which often takes root in disturbed ground.” After the destruction, when the soil is broken, it spreads more,” he told the Observer, as we passed “Ifa” before the opening.
He pulled that weed out of the sculpture, which stands upside down on a Corten steel plinth, as if it had just been plucked from the ground. “I was interested in that conflict: on the one hand, the plant regenerates and regenerates, enriches the soil and helps it to recover, but at the same time it takes on a way that may seem invasive or difficult to control,” he explained. By presenting it upside down, he wanted it to sound excavated, emphasizing roots, underground systems and what remains hidden beneath the surface.
In another base, the reticular glass dome protects the fragile form, suggesting both containment and permeability, exposure and pollution fertile by accidental events that keep the matter moving. “A lot of my work is about highlighting fleeting forms or moments in time, but I do that with a variety of techniques,” added Akashi. Trained in photography, he sees sculpture as another way to build a relationship with the subject through different levels of intimacy and physical engagement.
Lisson’s work uses borosilicate glass, which allows him to engage not only with material exploration but also with historical lines, as the medium recalls plant models made from 19th century lamps. “I am interested in tracing those histories and descendants through this project,” he emphasized. “I also like the tension between fragility and structure. Most of these types seem fragile, but they find their balance.”
Recently, she has been interested in how human-made decorative traditions-embroidery, lacemaking and decoration-have developed in dialogue with natural systems, often repeating their patterns and rhythms. Corten steel panels hang in the space, translating the embroidered tablecloths once in his house, but now lost in the fire, into something monumental and strong in shape and scale. “Some of these writings include patterns similar to grandmother’s lace tablecloths.” Only half of them survived the fire, so the carvings try to capture both the presence of that thing and the inaccessibility of what was lost.”
Mounted on the wall, the lyrics poured into the book’s ashes recall the intricate, repeating structures that already exist in nature, from the microscale of snowflakes to the macroscale of geological formations or corals. “I recently learned that one of the leading bobbin lace pattern designers is actually a scientist in Antarctica, because lace design depends on understanding mathematical properties,” Akashi said. “That relationship between mathematics, science, beauty and nature is very compelling to me.”
Throughout the show attempts to keep up with non-human time, to re-harmonize the forces of human creation with those of nature. “Geological time is very important in my work. I am interested in being outside of human time,” explains Akashi, sharing how, since he was evicted after the fire, he has experienced a different time, returning to his home from time to time and witnessing gradual changes. “Gardening has taught me something about recovery and longevity. There is a slow process of change that exists outside of our immediate perception.”
Akashi interprets the doily patterns into materials such as quartz and metal to connect the heritage close to the carved memorial traditions. “The stone-based works carry geological associations, while the lace motifs carry family memory and culture,” he points out. “By bringing them together, I can think about what we are achieving, what we are protecting and how we can move it forward.”
In connecting geological and human memory, he begins the task of repairing today’s worst divisions—between human life and natural life, between human time and the wider order of the universe—to rekindle a healthy connection between the two that can help us understand the natural explosion and cultural disruption at the heart of today’s problems.
In both process and material, Akashi’s new works serve as symbolic and verbal reminders that nature is always in motion, simultaneously shifting and changing. His photographs register time and change in all materials, as he allows traces of erosion, oxidation and change to remain visible, including continuous processes where matter records the duration and undergoes continuous change. After witnessing destruction and rebirth, he creates powerful symbolic metaphors: reminders that nature means change, that change is the essence of life, and that anything that fails to change will eventually perish or die. But destruction and loss can also mean change.
Many of the procedures he uses rely on craftsmen who have spent decades learning special techniques that have been passed down from generation to generation. “Collaboration and combined knowledge is very important to me. Many of the techniques I work with come from deep areas of craft that I cannot master alone. I often work with people who have been doing these traditions for decades,” he said. “Their knowledge is embedded in their bodies through repetition and time. I’m interested in how cultural knowledge is transmitted physically and physically from generation to generation.”
In the back of the gallery is a sculpture of a ring—a reconstruction of a precious stone that was passed down to Akashi by his grandmother and lost in a fire. A form of psychological memory that is deeply engraved in memory, it transcends the personal, that oscillates between decoration and raw geology, placing deep memory within a broader sense of geological and historical time. It is a general representation of what endures, part of Akashi’s attempt to defy the anthropocentric view, combining with this exhibition a sense of time and a meaning that transcends the individual.
This alchemy and transformation recur in everything he does, and he relates this concern to his earlier experiments in candle making, where he became fascinated by fire, heat, light and the transformation of materials from one state to another. “I often work directly on plants by taking them out of life.” In a way, it’s another way of polishing—preserving something that’s fleeting.” But I’m also interested in interacting with nature itself,” he recounts, recalling how some of the earlier bronze objects were designed to grow plants.
The exhibition feels well organized, because its structure creates a rhythm of reflection and distance between the works. This may be from Akashi’s idol training. “Photography always involves distance, but sculpture allows people to walk away, experience it physically and continue to build a relationship with it over time,” he said. “I can create the conditions for those relationships, but the work is constantly changing as the viewer interacts with it. I want his works to be experiences rather than objects. Different materials, scales, and methods allow overlapping ideas to emerge in ways I can’t fully explain.”
Ultimately, the exhibition is a reflection of what it means to inherit and protect fragile forms of knowledge, memory and material culture in the face of loss. “Legacy is about something precious that has been passed down,” said Akashi, “and the question of how we protect it, how we preserve it, and how we live with the possibility of losing it.”
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