'ARTnews' Names 'Confessions of Fire' by Isaiah Davis '25 One of New York's Best Art Exhibitions of 2025

Visual Arts alum Isaiah Davis '25 opened his third solo exhibition, Confessions of Fire, at King's Leap gallery in Chinatown this fall. The exhibit earned critical acclaim when ARTnews named it one of New York's best exhibitions of 2025. The exhibition is available for viewing through December 20, 2025.

Confessions of Fire is named after the debut album of rapper Cam'ron, whose album cover of a Black man working at a steel mill represented an early role model of masculinity for Davis. The exhibit uses the motifs of leather culture and the material of steel to iterate visions of Black masculinity within and beyond the confines of gender.

In the exhibit, which spans steel sculptures and enamel paintings on metal, Davis plays on East Harlem slang. The phrases "no homo" and "pause," which can be used to punctuate any behavior perceived as less than masculine, were popularized by Cam'ron during Davis's childhood. "With this performative flexibility, there was an almost camp reassertion of the rigid codes of heteronormative masculinity," Davis said. 

"In the metal shop working with steel, what motivates me is a confrontation with the self," Davis said. "I’m battling against this rigidity. The sculptures I’ve made for this show are a formal study of the enclosure. How is an enclosure like a pause?"

The senior editor of ARTnews, critic Alex Greenberger, put Confessions of Fire on ARTnews's list of the ten best art exhibitions in New York this year. "The best art I saw in New York in 2025—the art I’ll remember long after the year is finished—was often about perseverance in the face of adversity," Greenberger wrote. "Slave (2025), the beguiling sculpture that greets viewers at Isaiah Davis’s current exhibition, gets my vote as the most surprising work of this year."

ARTnews wasn't the only publication to praise Confessions of Fire. New York Times art critic Travis Diehl picked Confessions of Fire as an exhibit to visit in November. The exhibit's draw was perhaps best captured in a glowing review in Frieze, where critic and artist George Egerton-Warburton wrote, "What makes it so beautiful? Something delicate that begins in the mouth and ends in metal, like spitting bars."

Isaiah Davis (b. 1992, Bronx, NY) lives and works in New York. Davis received his MFA from Columbia School of the Arts and his BFA from The Cooper Union. Confessions of Fire is Davis’s first solo exhibition at King's Leap, following his participation in the gallery's group exhibition, Exquisite Corpse, in January. His film, Marlow Fazon Featuring Yesterday, debuted at MoMA Doc Fortnight earlier this year. Solo exhibitions include Participant Inc. (New York, NY), and Love Gallery (New York, NY). Selected group exhibitions include Kasmin for Artistic Noise: Benefit Auction 2025, SK Gallery (New York, NY), Wallach Art Gallery (New York, NY), Gallery Albany (Albany, NY), and Housing Gallery (New York, NY).