Aperture is pleased to release this limited-edition print by Arielle Bobb-Willis on the occasion of the publication of the artist’s first monograph, Keep the Kid Alive (2024). Exemplary of Bobb-Willis’s work, Austin (2020) is a vivid statement about color, gesture, and style. Keep the Kid Alive invites audiences into a brightly imaginative world, filled with dynamic colors, gestures, and unusual poses of the artist’s own creation. Transforming the streets of New Orleans, New York, and Los Angeles into lush backdrops for her wonderfully surreal tableaus, Bobb-Willis makes unforgettable images that expand the genres of fashion and art photography. “I love the idea of seeing Black people represented in an abstract way,” Bobb-Willis says. “It’s important to me to continue to reject the notion that Black expression is limited—or limiting.” With a conversation between Bobb-Willis and a dynamic range of artists, stylists, and creatives who speak about keeping their “inner kid” alive, this book captures a definitive young artist’s unconventional worldbuilding.
