Laylah Ali's gouache-and-ink drawings previously only implied violence, but here her interrupted narratives and pared-down, comic-book aesthetic present a perilous world where a wounded civilization and psychology meet. Psychopolitical situations are frozen in individual frames, populated by figures dressed in costumes derived from superheroes and prison guards, their limbs hacked off, their faces mangled, their bodies bandaged and their necks hung by nooses at the end of page-long ropes. Also taking up issues of gender and race, these drawings offer only the most uncomfortable conclusions.
Laylah Ali
