Night Gallery is thrilled to present In Circles, Still Forward, an exhibition of new paintings by Los Angeles based artist Kayla Witt. In Circles, Still Forward is Witt’s first solo exhibition with the gallery following her inclusion in Superbloom and our 2024 Frieze London presentation.

Witt’s work befriends the unknown and the varied ways in which we approach the mysteries that surround us. Spanning ancient archetypes and new age mysticism, Witt maps our yearning for connectivity, understanding and self actualization.

There is an earnest hunger in Witt’s latest body of work. A hunger for guidance, for belonging, for clarity and healing. Access to immaterial realms offered by posters and billboards highlight the ubiquity of ancient questions, commercialized in tchotchke form. Signage, symbols and talismans overlap and reinforce their common message by illustrating the persistence of invitations to step toward unchartered waters.

Like the snake that eats its tail, Witt employs the circle as a cyclical emblem, perpetually moving through beginnings and endings. The circle is contained and endless, centripetal and holistic, composed of continuous points to make a whole. Geometry carries sacred and utilitarian weight in Witt’s lexicon.

The paintings in the exhibition function as portraiture, depicting states of mind both singular and collective. As Witt reminds us, interiority is a physical and psychological space. In Searching for the Missing Piece, Witt selects items that act as surrogates for lived experience. Our belongings depict our longings, microcosms of desire fixed in objecthood. A model skeleton with arms extended reaches for a cosmic orb on a staircase that leads to nowhere. Facets of life vast enough to spark existential dread are rendered comprehendible in miniaturization. The immensity of the universe affixed in pacified neutrality when found repeated in wallpaper motifs, wind chimes and window appliqués. These shifts in scale enlarge our sense of self, enabling fleeting reprieve from panic stricken insignificance amongst planetary rhythms. An unassuming diptych, the work’s lost piece of the puzzle remains afloat, ever searching for home.

Psychic storefronts and other constructed vessels for transcendence are juxtaposed with awe inspiring sky scapes, infusing the work with temporality. Seemingly synchronistic encounters with the sublime draw upon Carl Jung’s notion of the numinous. The numinous is experiential, a spiritual presence in space that can free us from isolation, reconnecting us with the world at large.

Signifiers of transformation appear throughout In Circles, Still Forward. Heralds of regeneration abound, a new leaf around every corner if you wish it. Tolled numbers offering salvation line each pathway, tempting us with a fresh start. Signs ask viewers to “Follow Signs”, river stones are engraved with reminders to “Adjust”, caterpillars climb blades of grass while chicks break out of their shells.

With lighthearted sincerity In Circles, Still Forward pulls at the strings of what it means to live in both a spiritual and material world. As the Greek goddess Hecate adorns a roadside divorce attorney, the semiotics of landscape reflect our collective psyche.

-Mickey Mackenna Dill

Kayla Witt (b. 1994, Calgary, AB, Canada) has had solo exhibitions at Night Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; Sow & Tailor, Los Angeles, CA; and the University of Waterloo Art Gallery, Waterloo, ON. She has participated in group shows at Arsenal Contemporary, New York; albertz benda, Los Angeles, CA; Ketabi Bourdet, Paris, FR; WOAW Gallery, Hong Kong; Critical Distance Centre for Curators, Toronto, ON; among others. Witt has completed a number of residencies including Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles, CA; and Struts Gallery, Sackville, NB. Her work has been featured in HypeArt, Booooooom, Harper’s Magazine, It’s Nice That, Surface Mag, among others. She received her BFA from Ontario College of Art and Design University, Toronto, ON and her MFA from the University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON. Witt lives and works in Los Angeles, CA.