AF Projects Presents: Scoli Acosta – To Ward The Setting Sun

AF Projects is proud to launch its program with a solo exhibition by Los Angeles artist Scoli Acosta. This marks Acosta’s first LA solo exhibition since Rippling: An Earnest Moiré Effect at the Armory Center for the Arts (2011) and Bountiful at LAXART (2008).

In To Ward The Setting Sun, a mobile of sliced wooden drum shells, depicting surfer hands and the sun in motion, serves as an entry point into a collection of paintings, drawings, and sculptures that unfold within the gallery. Acosta creates a space for reflection on Los Angeles and the gallery’s location on Sunset Boulevard, a site that embodies hope, renewal, and ambition. The boulevard has long been associated with dreams, westward expansion, and the pursuit of light, yet, as the exhibition reminds us, the sun inevitably sets. Like a day, a lifetime, or an empire, all things must come to an end.

Acosta’s work is grounded in what he calls “the aesthetics of resourcefulness”, a practice of repurposing found and familiar materials, breathing new life into them. His process is not about elevation, but exposure, revealing the poetic and narrative qualities inherent in everyday objects. His art embraces its handmade transparency, celebrating imperfections as marks of authenticity.

"Though you can see how it's made, the mechanics of it, it still has a beauty and a magic to it… When you make something, when you use your hands… you create the world." – Scoli Acosta