Faith, Frame, Focus
Gabriel Moses’ Selah confronts the limits of cultural visibility by framing Black British identity through a lens shaped by faith, family, and the creative urgency of working-class resistance.
Gabriel Moses shines a brighter light on Black British culture in his latest exhibition, Selah. © All rights belong to their respective owners. No copyright infringement intended.
"WHO CAN’T HEAR MUST FEEL" is the phrase which lurks behind a timeworn concrete pillar in the shadowy basement of 180 Studios, where it serves as an introduction to Gabriel Moses' sophomore exhibition, Selah — a biblical term signifying a pause for reflection.
Faith runs deep in the young British-Nigerian photographer, who wears his cultural identity with pride, cultivated from an early age by a single mother’s unwavering belief in her son’s road to greatness.
The quote, a personal mantra for the photographer, was born from the frustration of being repeatedly stereotyped by a luxury industry that struggles to embrace working-class perspectives due to a deep cultural divide; this lack of faith from the establishment drove Moses to self-fund early projects with a rugged determination to prove his talent to those who weren’t listening — until they had no choice but to feel the force of his creativity.
Two years after his debut exhibition Regina, Gabriel Moses returns with his largest showcase to date: a collection of over 70 photographs and 10 films, all testament to the artist’s wildly blossoming career across the worlds of fashion, music, and sport.
Selah welcomes you with an echo of Skepta’s deep baritone voice as you descend the dangerously dim concrete staircase from a quiet side street. The first thing you encounter is not a portrait, but a projection of behind-the-scenes vignettes soundtracked by East London rapper Potter Payper, whose lyrics open a window into the kind of life Moses might have lived growing up in one of the city’s sprawling council estates.
This prelude represents the photographer’s reality, which immediately gives way to Moses’ fantasy: a world where Black is mainstream. Selah builds on the foundation of Regina but surpasses it in depth and ambition, drawing from a broader body of work. In one image, Moses imagines a Black Marilyn Monroe; in another, a Black Victoria Beckham. Most poignantly, he casts his own mother as Queen Victoria — a portrait that echoes the regality of womanhood central to his debut.
Venture deeper into the exhibition’s enveloping darkness and you’ll encounter Lost Times, a music video directed for ScHoolboy Q. It retells classic Disney stories with Black characters, a tribute to all the lost times when that wasn’t the case.
In this deliberate space, you feel as though you're the subject of a Gabriel Moses photograph. Sparse overhead bulbs splash your shadow across every image on display, pulling your form into the frame. This dramatic lighting lends a cinematic quality to Moses' signature aesthetic, rooted in childhood memories of a single lamp casting long shadows across his bedroom — an effect that would go on to shape the technique of his images, evoking the spirit of Caravaggio in more ways than one.
Gabriel. Moses. Selah. The Bible seems to define everything about this young photographer, who credits his remarkable success to the grace of God. The exhibition feels spiritual not only in its starkness but also in its selections. Moses' work consistently acknowledges the presence of a higher power, whether through themes of family or religious iconography — like in Paris (2024), where a crucifix frames a young model clad in a chain-link bralette, her face contorted in anguish. It's a powerful image that speaks to the continued suffering of Christ, passed down through his followers.
Spanning sixteen rooms, Selah is more maze-like in structure than Regina, reflecting a career that has ballooned in the two years since his last exhibition. Curated by Katja Horvat and supported by Emilia Marguiles and Jayda Deans, Selah aptly filters Moses' work through the sensibilities of three women, resulting in a collection that aligns with the photographer’s ongoing exploration of femininity and womanhood.
Paris (2024) by Gabriel Moses. © All rights belong to their respective owners. No copyright infringement intended.
Gabriel Moses named his debut exhibition (and creative studio) Regina, Latin for “Queen,” as an homage to the three generations of women who shaped his life: his grandmother, mother, and sister. His work is deeply tied to these familial connections, with Moses crediting his unique aesthetic to the ancestral memories preserved in old family photo albums, which served as the launchpad from which he developed his eye for beauty, further refined by his sister’s fashion magazines.
At 17, Moses picked up the camera to shoot short films of friends playing football. It was this early work that caught the attention of a perceptive Nike employee, who, recognising Moses’ potential, handed the self-taught upstart his first commercial opportunity just a year into his newfound profession.
Moses seized his lucky break and built on the momentum, amassing an impressive catalogue of commissions that include Dior, Louis Vuitton, and Travis Scott. Within three years, he had accumulated enough work to stage his first solo exhibition — a tribute to the women who empowered his vision and instilled the confidence necessary for him to survive as a self-made artist.
The project that feels most indicative of this journey is Moses’ Bal d’Afrique campaign for Byredo, a film that beautifully explores the link between three generations of African women. Moses views the campaign as an honest reflection of himself, suggesting that the more one embraces their personal identity, the more universal their work becomes — the throughline being our shared humanity, which transcends race and status.
Throughout Selah, bold maxims emblazoned on the walls ground Gabriel Moses’ fantasy in the reality of the working-class photographer’s creative struggle. One such phrase, "WE DON’T BELIEVE YOU," seems to reject the luxury industry’s superficial celebration of Blackness — a trend most recently on display at the Met Gala, which spotlighted Black style out of colonial guilt rather than genuine admiration.
This isn’t the first time luxury has appropriated working-class cultures, yet working-class people remain perennially underrepresented in an industry that thrives on privilege and nepotism — just consider the number of celebrity relatives in fashion. For low-income creatives, success often requires double the effort of their well-off peers, who are rarely expected to work for free — a dynamic that perpetuates a corrupt system of exploitation, especially for those in desperate situations.
To understand why the number of working-class creatives has more than halved since the 1990s, you would have to recognise that young people from lower economic backgrounds are often discouraged from pursuing the arts due to the high risk of unemployment.
On top of that, universities have moved from government grants to tuition fees, meaning they now depend on wealthy international students for revenue. This shift fuels growing disillusionment with a globalised system that prioritises foreign money over homegrown talent, leading to cultural stagnation. The prevalent lack of diversity threatens to erase essential stories that form an integral part of our national identity.
This is why “TRYNA BREAK THAT CYCLE” is etched into the very foundation of Gabriel Moses’ latest exhibition — because working-class voices in photography are becoming increasingly rare, and that’s a trend that needs to change.
Walking away from Selah, you feel as though you’ve just witnessed something significant. Gabriel Moses needed to reimagine mainstream media to include his culture because it was never there to begin with. This erasure should never have occurred. Perhaps it’s time for the industry to move away from privilege and embrace humility, to welcome the perspectives of those who approach art with an honesty that resonates more deeply, because the truth transcends surface-level aesthetics. Selah offers a moment for us all to pause and consider: are we doing enough to amplify the voices and perspectives of people like Gabriel Moses?
