Tamar Ettun | dreamsong, Los Angeles

Against a background of US government cuts to scientific research and perennially poor funding for women’s health, Brooklyn-based artist Tamar Ettun’s presentation at Frieze Los Angeles juxtaposes ancient healing rituals and contemporary embryology. Ettun reconsiders the mythical figure of Lilith, historically viewed as a demonic threat to reproductive health in a series of new works developed in collaboration with Harvard embryologist Yong Hyun Song. These enigmatic images are the result of a pioneering microscopy process and suggest both the invisible and the infinite, weaving together materials and ideas from the ancient to the contemporary.



Turiya Adkins | Hannah Traore Gallery, Los Angeles
In Hannah Traore Gallery’s presentation, Ettun’s fellow Brooklynite Turiya Adkins is also looking at mythic foundations, coming up with the concept of ‘Afro-futuremyth’ (as opposed to Afrofuturism) which emphasizes mythology as an ongoing process of reimagining ancestral narratives, rather than just making more things that looks like other ‘Afrofuturist’ artworks. Adkins uses a wide variety of visual, aural and written sources to create dense palimpsests of gestural mark-making, suggesting a relentless overlaying of experience and meaning that only ever partially obliterates what has gone before. 



Africanus Okokon | OCHI, Los Angeles
Newly relocated to LA’s Melrose Hill, OCHI gallery is looking to the future with a solo presentation at Frieze Los Angeles of Providence-based artist Africanus Okokon. Okokon, an alumnus of NXTHVN art centre (which is collaborating on this year’s Frieze Impact Prize) works across painting, collage, sculpture, installation and even music (check out his excellent 2024 album Offering on Bandcamp); at Frieze, he will debut new hybrid paintings based on images sourced from his personal archive. Initially made with silkscreen, oil and coconut milk, the works are burned to reveal their final subjects, reflecting material and conceptual transformation. Throughout the fair, the installation will be reconfigured every day, evoking Okokon’s fascination with the slippage between image and experience.



Jamal Cyrus | PATRON, Los Angeles
Another artist who uses music as an intrinsic part of their practice is Houston’s Jamal Cyrus, who employs collage and assemblage to investigate layers of history embedded within sound, images and materials, including denim, concrete, vinyl records and musical instruments. At Frieze Los Angeles, Patron’s solo presentation of Cyrus’s work centres on his sculpture and installations, debuting his most recent series of denim textiles and refashioned musical instruments: works that resonate with accumulated histories of identity and imperial power. 

Emily Barker | Carlye Packer, Los Angeles
A recipient of a 2025 Guggenheim Fellowship whose work has been acquired by the Museum of Modern Art Frankfurt and Akron Art Museum, LA’s Emily Barker is definitely one to watch. At Frieze Los Angeles, Carlye Packer gallery will present the third of Barker’s series of large-scale architectural sculptures made from thermoformed PETG plastic. Following Kitchen (exhibited in the 2022 Whitney Biennial) and 2023’s Illusions of Care, this new work will again explore the aggressive marginalization that disabled people can experience in aethestic-design-led environments.