Visual Implications, curated by Ashley Ouderkirk, explores how artists tap into our 21st-century visual comprehension through gesture, symbolism, and pop-culture iconography — all deeply rooted in art historical traditions. In a flood of text messages, emails, and notifications, we have shifted our focus away from the written word, and instead, have gravitated towards a visual vocabulary of selfies, memes, and iconographic and pop culture references that signal both personal identities and worldviews, and serve as symbols of literacy and community connectedness in our rapidly developing upcycling image culture. Using the artworks of Charles Clary, Nanse Kawashima, and Cassandra Zampini, viewers are invited to flex their visual literacy by recognizing familiar gestures, symbols, and icons while contemplating the artist’s intention behind each work. When viewed together, these artworks delve into deeper conversations about the seductive power, nostalgia, and simplicity of visual communication, while also addressing the dangers, biases, and miscommunications. The show asks, “As we continue to navigate in this digital age, should we place a higher value on visual literacy? Is our society aptly weighing the Visual Implications?”

About the Artists

Charles Clary is a South Carolina-based artist who creates artworks using layered, hand-cut paper and salvaged, found objects. His recent sculptures are deeply personal and nostalgic; they explore issues of death and neglect while maintaining elements of hope and beauty. Clary’s sculpted works and commissions are in numerous private and public collections including the Telfair Museum of Art, in Georgia.

Nanse Kawashima is a Japanese-born visual artist, working on painted collages. Based in New York, Kawashima takes printed vintage ephemera and paints over areas, isolating parts of the subject from their background to transform the presence and symbolism of non-specific moments and places. Kawashima has shown her work in galleries both in New York and Japan.

Cassandra Zampini is a New York-based new-media artist examining the breakdown of truth online and exposing the invisible influences behind our always-on digital culture. Zampini creates Internet-mined artworks by harvesting vast amounts of existing digital media and then recontextualizing the content into large-scale physical and digital canvases. Zampini’s work has been collected by private, public, and corporate collections including the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston and Armoni Investments in Boston and she is currently an artist fellow at the New York National Arts Club.

Ashley Ouderkirk is an independent curator and art writer based in New York City. She aims to acknowledge, examine, and value frequently overlooked artists and art venues.

For more information on Cassandra Zampini, visit her website and follow her on Instagram.

Location: 340 East 64th Street, New York, NY 10065, United States

Time: 6:00 PM — 8:00 PM EST

Free!

Registration