Title
Round
Acrylic, oil sticks on canvas
66 x 56 inches
Courtesy Halim A. Flowers
Estimated Retail Value: $18,000-$28,000
Starting Bid: $9,000
Halim Flowers is a multidisciplinary artist, writer, and activist whose paintings convey messages of perseverance, healing, acceptance, and of greatest importance, love. Flowers spent 22 years in prison for a crime he did not commit; during his incarceration, he turned to artistic expression as a way to channel his creativity and undergird his resilience. After his release in 2019, his work quickly gained attention for its distinctive balance of emotional vulnerability and radical hope. Influenced by the raw energy of artists like Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring, Flowers uses images, text, and forms to develop a distinctive aesthetic language of awareness and resistance that explores systems of power while remaining grounded in love. A signature example, this work’s title suggests imprisonment, but its imagery–including two or more figures and the word CAPITA (“heads” or “individuals” in Latin)–evokes unbound movement and creative energy among connected people.
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Halim Flowers
Halim Flowers (b. 1980, Washington, DC; lives and works in DC) is an artist, rapper, poet, designer, and public speaker. His work has been featured in exhibitions including the Venice Biennale (Personal Structures, 2024, European Cultural Center) and Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration at venues such as MoMA PS1, the The Phillips Collection, and the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center. Flowers has presented solo exhibitions internationally, including in Paris, New York, and Liechtenstein, and his work has been shown at galleries and fairs such as the LA Art Show and World Art Dubai. His high-profile collaborations include projects with Warner Bros. for its Centennial celebration and with the British Royal Family for Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee. A recipient of the Halcyon Arts Lab Fellowship and Echoing Green’s Black Male Achievement Fellowship, Flowers is also the author of numerous books, further extending his multidisciplinary practice and global cultural impact.
