ANDREW RAFACZ is pleased to announce Sorri fi maaga dawg, cuz maaga dawg will ton roun bite yu, a solo exhibition of new works from Krystle Lemonias, in Gallery One. The exhibition opens Friday, June 12th and continues through Saturday, August 1st, 2026. This is the artist’s second solo exhibition with the gallery.

With her newest body of work, interdisciplinary artist Krystle Lemonias continues her practice of combining drawing, pattern-making, collage, sewing and woodblock printing to create layered textile-based compositions that intimate the experiences and histories within Black and people-of-color immigrant communities.

Born in Jamaica, Lemonias moved to the United States when she was ten years old. Her childhood experience with this significant transition, and in the larger context, her newfound understanding of Caribbean people’s resilience to provide for their families while reconstructing some sense of their cultural identity, are central to her endeavors.

The artist’s newest series explores the intersections of labor, migration, and cultural identity, through personal and familial experiences, specifically in relation to her family’s connection to Panama and the construction of the Panama Canal. Lemonias’ great-grandfather traveled to Panama in the 1920s after serving in WWI, in search of work after the canal’s inauguration. Mirroring her own journey to the United States, this shared migration, separated by generations yet bound by the same search for a better life, is central to her exhibition. Through a residency at Casa Santa Ana Foundation in Panama City, Lemonias immersed herself in Panama’s complex history—its entanglement with U.S. imperialism, its role in global commerce, and the ways in which Black Caribbean laborers like her great-grandfather contributed to its development.

Returning from her residency, Lemonias continued her research, which further inspired her own visual weaving of historical narratives with contemporary scenarios. Her resultant works translate landscapes and structures into charged personal compositions, layering textures and materials to represent the passage of time and the shifting definitions of space. Through the physical acts of sewing and relief printing, she embodies the hands-on labor that so many immigrants have performed to build new futures. Approaching textile-making through the language of painting, Lemonias incorporates upholstery fabric, clothes from her paternal family and Panamanians she met while in residence, and post-consumer goods, to create dynamic compositions, at times even affecting the illusion of painterly washes by way of her collaged elements. The disposability of her found materials, frequently encountered throughout her practice, points to how working-class labor is often seen as easily discarded or dismissed. Lemonias tells their stories— of resilience, survival, and the pursuit of opportunity— that have been overlooked.

The exhibition’s title, Sorri fi maaga dawg, cuz maaga dawg will ton roun bite yu, is a Jamaican proverb that advises that sometimes it is the same ones we’ve helped who are the most ungrateful. It serves as a reminder to be measured with kindness in all things, because you’re often otherwise taken for granted. For Lemonias, this relates to the spirit of laborers, who pour their all into their work, while often being exploited for it. She explains, ‘for me, the most important aspect of this work is honoring those who came before us, the lives lost and the lives that continue. It also acknowledges those who sacrificed for a better future, to document the struggles and triumphs of Black immigrants, and to create a space where their stories are seen, valued, and remembered.’

KRYSTLE LEMONIAS (Jamaican, b. 1989) lives and works in Newark, NJ. Lemonias received her BFA in printmaking from New Jersey City University in 2018 and her MFA at the University of South Florida in 2022. Residencies include Elizabeth Murray Artist Residency, Collar Works (Granville, NY), Casa Santa Ana (Panama City, Panama), New Jersey Center of the Arts (Summit, NJ) and Guttenberg Arts (Guttenberg, NJ). Recent and upcoming solo exhibitions include ANDREW RAFACZ (Chicago, IL), HUB-Robeson Alley Gallery, Pennsylvania State University (University Park, PA), Woodson African American Museum (St. Petersburg, FL), Casa Santa Ana (Panama City, Panama), Mariboe Gallery, Peddie School (Hightstown, NJ), and Coco Hunday Gallery (Tampa, FL). Group exhibitions include Hunterdon Art Museum (Hunterdon, NJ), Marshall J. Gardner Center for the Arts (Gary, IN), South Shore Arts (Munster, IN), National Museum of Wildlife Art (Jackson, WY), Susquehanna Art Museum (Harrisburg, PA), Lubeznik Center for the Arts (Michigan, IN), Visual Art Center of New Jersey (Summit, NJ), Towson University (Towson, MD), Rutgers University (Newark, NJ), Art Center Sarasota (Sarasota, FL), Guttenberg Arts (Guttenberg, NJ), The Contemporary Art Museum (Tampa, FL), Blum and Poe (Los Angeles, CA), Contemporary Art Center New Orleans (New Orleans, LA), Morean Art Center (Tampa, FL), San Jacinto College (Pasadena, TX), International Print Center of New York (New York, NY), BSB Gallery (Trenton, NJ), and the New York Academy of Art (New York, NY). She has exhibited at art fairs in Miami, Chicago and New York. Her work is included in both private and public collections.