Frieze LA 2025

FREIZE LOS ANGELES 2025 | BOOTH D5

SAIF AZZUZ: PORTRAITS OF FRIENDS

Anthony Meier is pleased to present Portraits of Friends, a solo booth of new work by Bay Area-based artist and California Native, Saif Azzuz. The artist's work draws on pre-colonial histories and connection to land, inherent in his practice is his identity as both a Yurok tribal member and child of a first-generation immigrant from Libya. The presentation consists of paintings and sculptures that appreciate nature as an extension of humanity rather than a resource to be extracted.

Azzuz’s paintings straddle abstraction and surrealism in their sweeping use of color, sensual movement, and evocation of the natural world. For Azzuz, the land is a marker of space in a time of fleeting ecologies and environmental catastrophes. Through repetitive mark-making and vigorous study of medium and material, Azzuz has created vibrant new artworks that function as portraits of living beings rather than depictions of a landscape that exists outside of us.

At the heart of our presentation, What Memories Hold [2024] is a striking 17-foot-long salon-style installation, carefully crafted by Azzuz. This immersive piece reverberates with the vitality of the ecosystem, its plant and animal inhabitants, fishing practices, and the rich tapestry of stories and histories. It invites viewers into a space brimming with collective energy, where the artist's connection to the land is deeply felt and shared. Sculptural assemblages featuring traditional Yurok patterns hang alongside wooden carvings of animals, such as a bird, deer, and coyote—a recurring motif in Azzuz’s work that draws upon the Karuk story of how the Coyote (a.k.a Segap) captured fire. Azzuz sources, repurposes, and recontextualizes these materials to reveal their meanings with care and intention.

The artist’s focus on land stewardship is evident in his ongoing wildfire series. The ethereal plant imagery that adorns the canvases is created by spraying pigments over native and invasive plant species, which are carefully arranged on the surface, thus embedding the land itself into the artwork. By exploring the ongoing wildfires in California and the broader impact of climate change, Azzuz draws on the color palette from wildfire and drought maps—vivid yellows, oranges, reds, and purples—serving as a stark visual warning. His incorporation of native and invasive plants to form shapes and patterns further deepens the connection to the land, while routinely invoking Indigenous cultural knowledge throughout his work.