Gabriel Moses

GABRIEL MOSES

There is clarity that comes with knowing who you are and what you can do. Since making his first film for Nike, the 24-year-old has worked with a growing list of world-leading brands and developed a growing catalogue of signature visuals that challenge contemporary representational practices. We explore what it means to bridge the intersections between community, culture and art.

I arrive in East London tasked with the responsibility of producing a feature article that could embody the breadth and depth of Moses’ practice. I prepared myself with a list of questions – the standard; when did he start his creative journey? Who are his key inspirations? What advice would he give to emerging artists? We sat there patiently waiting for Gabriel Moses to make an appearance. I began rehearsing various conversations and scenarios that might give an insight into his creative practice. I was nervous. And the anticipation of what was to come was met with self-doubt. Before this feeling progressed, we see Moses rustling towards us. He greets us with a calm yet distant look. “Its mad. I have been mad busy,” he tells us as he takes us to his office. He had recently returned from Milan and was heading to Paris the following morning for a shoot. Though physically present and open to us reasoning about his creative practice, I could feel that his mind was miles away.

Perched in his East London office, I observe portraits of his matriarchal lineage – his grandmother and mother- juxtaposed against Nike shoe boxes. Though nestled in East London, the sounds of Dave seaming through his stereo and the iconography of his family reminds us that we are not too far from his ideas of home – South London. Growing up within a Nigerian household, he credits his cultural heritage and South London roots for installing a “healthy arrogance.” “There is a confidence that comes from being from South London.” As a fellow South Londoner, the statement resounded with some of my early adolescent years spent playing knock down ginger, making up dance moves to So Solid Crew and linking up at Morely’s after school. We existed in our own world, with our own norms and customs that seemed to be distinct from what was happening in the rest of London.

“There is a confidence that comes with being from South London.”

Perhaps it was this connection that brought me closer to Moses’s work. The vivid images of Black adventure, nonchalance and youthful charm reignited an inner-child that the grey hues of London life had silenced. Indeed, his work speaks a language that many people growing up South London can understand. Beyond the African Cash and Carry’s and Halal meat shops, rests a defiant community on the cusp of success. “Whether it was the strong sense of community and achievement, it seemed like it was a prize to be from South London.” His declaration is demonstrated in the long list of success stories that have found its way in mainstream media – from Giggs in Peckham, Stormzy in South Norwood, to Naomi Campbell in Lambeth – the South London story is yet to be reckoned with.

It was within the context of South London that Moses found his entry point into the creative industry. Self-taught, he admits that “I am not the most organised person, but I am obsessed with becoming good and doing well. I have always been an achiever my entire life, I don’t like the idea of being rubbish at things.” An avid Manchester United fan, his appreciation of the visual came through his love for sports. “I remember being a kid and seeing visuals from the Nike campaign in the TV commercials and being blown away.” For many inner-city Black youth growing up in the early noughties, Television commercials spoke a language that dominant modes of visual arts such as paintings and sculptures could not. Whether it was a campaign for cornflakes, or a new pair of Adidas, still images captured on television reels, gave us a means of representation in seeing ourselves whilst being seen.

But more than this, there was a feeling that we were involved in the process of image-making. “There was a guy called Andy Anderson who lived down my road,” he tells me, “he was a sports choreographer who used to do all the Nike commercials. I remember looking at what he did and how he moved and being inspired. Some of the guys from ends would be models and casted in commercials for the world cup.” Most of us who grew accustomed to “life on ends” have, at some point, been conscripted into a campaign or competition for a sports brand or music video. As Moses reflected on this early engagement, I could see his eyes light up. He was no longer aloof and preoccupied with his busy European schedule. For a quick moment, I entered his world. Poised and imperturbable, I observed as he begun communing with his past and reminding himself why he does what he does.

“It could be Queen Elizabeth or Thierry Henry in that light. This is my world and everyone that comes into that light will be situated in that world.”

“I try to keep that feeling inside me and reproduce it everywhere I go.” While some people might see this as risky business, Moses rests his power in trusting in his knowledge and ability. During his first year on a Business Degree, he started making videos with some of his friends and uploaded them to Youtube. “This was my first win. Even though I didn’t get any views, the idea of having the freedom to take something and bring it to life on the internet, was a win for me.”

The pursuit for freedom landed him with an opportunity to work with Nike, who, after coming across one of his videos, reached out to him for work. The opportunity convinced Moses to leave University. “When I left University, I told myself that I will just give me a year to explore and figure things out. If it doesn’t work out, then I don’t have a problem with going back. It wasn’t too much of a back and forth. It wasn’t a challenge for me. At University all your time was spent studying or being taught. But I loved the idea of having 365 days in a year that I could do what I wanted. I thought, if I put everything into this stuff, then I am guaranteed to get results.”

“We lose our honesty as adults, but there is an innocence in children. If they don’t like something they will tell you. We can learn a lot creatively by looking at things through their eyes.”

The more I listened to Moses recount his journey, the more I realised that power rests in our abilities to unapologetically tell our stories in a way that challenge dominant representations. Infancy and conviviality, or what he describes, as “childish ignorance” are themes that are woven throughout Moses’ work. His 2021 feature for Moncler is an ode to the place of the visual and its importance in Black life. Throughout, we are swept between competing landscapes, ancestral folklores, intergenerational dialogues, and visual juxtapositions that bring together diasporic past, present and futures. For Moses, there is an element of possibility that can be explored through centring children. Drawing on his Christian beliefs, he tells me that “we lose our honesty as adults, but there is an innocence in children. If they don’t like something they will tell you. We can learn a lot creatively through looking at things through their eyes.” As I listened, I thought – what would it mean to imagine a Black man or a Black woman as a child? What kind of representations are we able to re- imagine when think about infancy and play in terms of competing depictions of Black life?

Such an approach comes with powerful emotional conviction. He insisted that creatives should consider the psychologically between an image and the audience. “For the 100 people that like something, there will be 100 people that don’t. I don’t think too much about the audience when I make work because I realise that most people don’t know what they like. Instead, I think about how I want to feel. Understanding from the audience perspective how a film in 2004 made you feel and understanding that there is a psychology behind how people feel when they see art.” It is this emotional intelligence that allows Moses to thread through the online archives and bring various subjects into one space. The formidable ten- minute film he directed for Little Simz’s music video, No Thank You, offered the world an emotional sequence of vignettes that powerfully reconstructed coming-of-age themes. Viewers are taken on a journey through bold stripped back black and white scenes, to contemporary soundscapes and spectacular visuals that capture generational discontent. Though grappling with themes of mental health and trauma, Moses’ ability to weave feelings with innovative and deeply personal visuals leave viewers with an air of possibility.

This inescapable sense of possibility is evidenced in Moses’ technical attention to detail. “The second I stop doing my job well,” he explains, “all positive things disappear.” Scanning his visual archives, we can quickly see his creative signature – a moody sketch of darkness that is met with a deep ray of light. Much of this colour palette is gleaned from still images from his childhood memories. “Growing up I wouldn’t sleep with the light of. There was always a candle in my room. Before going to bed you are used to seeing shapes coming through the door the lamp. I like the idea of shapes coming out of Blackness. So, when I started making, films I knew that there was a certain light I wanted to capture.” The flashes of memories that anchors his technical craftmanship bring us closer to seeing the world through Moses’ lens. “Everything I do is being brought into my world,” he smiles, “it could be queen Elizabeth or Thierry Henry in that light. This is my world and everyone that comes into that light will be situated in that world.”

Such themes sit at the heart of Moses’ recent show at the 180 Gallery in London. Covering over 50 photographs spanning his career thus far, as well as new commissioned film exploring the life of young ballet dancers in Lagos, the show presents us with a timely opportunity to appreciate the entirety of his body of work. For Moses, it represented a chance to see the world through his gaze. “As my careers moved, I have never had my work sit in spaces just because I didn’t feel that there would be a moment where everything is together.” Keen to make sure he took his time to pull together the physical display, the process has taken Moses just over two years to complete and has inspired him to explore the ways in which his work can bring about important societal conversations. “It will be interesting to see how people react to my work in the moment.”

“The fact that I didn’t grow up studying this thing means that I am operating from a completely fresh perspective. It is me and me only.”

This is perhaps what makes Moses’ work difficult to position; whether he documents fashion, sports or music, his creativity inhabits its own world. “If I am on the internet and I comes across something like Chinese photography, I will take that in and save it in my mind. I never really seen anything as weird. Whether it is Rock culture or Folk music from Mali and Senegal, I am pulling one percent from a universal language.” In other words, if he does not like it, then you probably will not see it. “The fact that I didn’t grow up studying this thing means that I am operating from a completely fresh perspective. It is me and me only.”

Photography : Jonas Martinez

Words : Aleema Gray