Kala Gallery is excited to co-present the exhibition Feeling Language curated by Kate Laster and Julio Rodriguez with NIAD Art Center, featuring new works by over 30 artists, the majority from NIAD Art Center with additional artists from Hospitality House’s Community Arts Program), Creative Growth, and Creativity Explored.

Feeling Language examines comfort and power in text, writing, reading, sharing and communications. In the words by the curators, “this show is all about comfort text: resilience in everyday words, writing, and reading. Expression can also be wordless, the use of line and color as new vocabulary, pushing a thought out onto a surface, making marks and continuously trying to communicate with the world. We tell stories to sustain ourselves and find each other. These messages embedded in art become an emotional telegram – a signal flare with a flame of memory trailing behind it. Feeling Language encompasses books, lists, slogans, language, gesture, touch and the trust given in sharing.”

Among the guest artists outside of these programs are: New York based visual storyteller and activist, Lukaza Branfman-Verissimo; Mitsuko Brooks, artist & archivist also practicing in New York; interdisciplinary musician Abby Gregg, currently working in Atlanta; and educator & printmaker Alex Lukas in Santa Barbara. FEELING LANGUAGE also features guest artists who are based in the Bay: experimental printmaker & designer Negash Asegde; Steph Kudisch, an artist & queer researcher; Jer Garver, librarian & archival collagist; and Ocean Escalanti, poet and artist.

All of these artists’ practices embody yearning, text, and transmission of ideas.

At the opening reception on May 17, there will be a community workshop, SONG NEST: collaborative visual songwriting with Abby Gregg at 1 pm.

Interdisciplinary musician and artist Abby Gregg will perform original music, talk about the connection between image-making and songwriting, and facilitate the creation of a collective song. Participants are encouraged to draw while listening. Through the improvised discovery of words, textures, and sounds, participants will combine sonic ideas and listen deeply with one another. Open to all ages. There will be a recorded mix of the collaborative song.

NIAD ARTISTS:
Heather Copus, Luis Estrada, Shantae Robinson, Shana Harper, Rebecca Jantzen, Deatra Colbert Karen May, Halisi Noel-Johnson, Michael Nuñez, Dorian Reid, Peter Harris, Shawn Sanders, Jason Powell-Smith, Ann Meade, Nathan Lam

CREATIVITY EXPLORED ARTISTS:
John Patrick McKenzie, Doris Yen

COMMUNITY ARTS PROGRAM ARTISTS:
Gigot, Anthony Morrison

CREATIVE GROWTH ARTISTS:
Karen Ridge, Alex Schaffer

POSTHUMOUSLY INCLUDED:
Louie Spagnola (NIAD Artist), Mireya Betances (NIAD Artist), Sara Malpass (NIAD Artist), Cameron Kim (CAP Artist), Ronnie Goodman (CAP Artist)

GUEST ARTISTS:
Abby Gregg, Alex Lukas, Lukaza Branfman-Verissimo, Negash Asegde, Steph Kudisch, Mitsuko Brooks, Ocean Escalanti, Jer Garver.