Noni Olabisi: When Lightning Strikes
Exhibition Dates: January 29 – March 28, 2026
Opening Reception: Saturday, February 7, 1 - 3PM
The Laband Art Gallery is delighted to present the first institutional exhibition to shine a light on the extraordinary and underrecognized career of Noni Olabisi (1954 -2022), an artist whose epic murals have become defining centerpieces in neighborhoods and communities in South Los Angeles.
Noni Olabisi: When Lightning Strikes includes more than 40 artworks created from 1984 to 2022 that honor Olabisi’s remarkable work as an artist, muralist, and mentor. Olabisi is known for her bold and daring public artworks, particularly her three superlative hand-painted murals in Los Angeles: “Freedom Won’t Wait” (1992); “To Protect and Serve” (1995); and “Troubled Island” (2003). What unites all of her work—whether writ large on a wall or rendered on canvas—is Olabisi’s lifelong commitment to telling truthful stories of contemporary Black people as well as their forebears. Indeed, she possessed a deep sense of pride in Black identity and infused her portraits ranging from Black leaders like Malcolm X to her beloved son, Oronde, and grandson, Jabari, with hope, dignity and joy.
Equally powerful was Olabisi’s desire to confront past and current conditions of racism affecting Black people through her art. She found her calling in her very first public commission (“Freedom Won’t Wait,” 1992) when she proposed to fill the entirety of a large concrete wall in South Los Angeles with vivid scenes depicting the contemporaneous trauma and anguish experienced by Black residents during the 1992 urban uprising in Los Angeles. Here, Olabisi’s visual language is as stunningly honest and passionate as it is painful.
The title of the exhibition—When Lightning Strikes—can be understood as a recognition of the everyday miracles Olabisi experienced and celebrated in her life as well as the hardship she suffered, particularly in childhood. Olabisi regarded her life’s path and, especially, her artistic virtuosity as emblematic of a higher calling. In addition to her defining use of bold red and black in her artwork as well as depictions of hands, birth, and seeds of renewal, Olabisi is most known for the yellow dot she nearly always positioned on her subjects’ forehead. In her artist statement, she shared, “The yellow dot in almost everything I paint is a representation of the sun…It is the giver of life and reflects our inner light and connectedness.”
In 2022, while completing her first-ever artist residency at the Arts at Blue Roof in South Los Angeles, Noni Olabisi passed away unexpectedly. The body of work that she made at Blue Roof constituted a personal breakthrough for her and selections of these paintings are included in this show. As is the case throughout her career, Olabisi fully believed in her own personal mission even while she wasn’t seeking accolades. This exhibition seeks to give the artist much deserved recognition and honor how Olabisi moved through the world, striking a critically-minded and heart-centered balance that was uniquely her own. A publication is in the works and will be released in fall 2026.