National Juried Exhibition
Opening Reception
Saturday, November 15th, 7-9pm
Exhibition: November 15, 2025 - January 10, 2026


About "Word Play"

“Word Play” seeks to influence the viewer through the interplay between text and visual elements in contemporary art. The text serves as a message, a visual texture, a conceptual element, or even as the main subject. The works explore the interaction between words and image, spanning themes such as language, identity, culture, politics, and beyond.

Award Artists:
Martin Brief, Thad Higa, Ling-Lin Ku

Featured Gallery Artists:
Carrington Arredondo, Will Ashford, Elizabeth Brandt, Jean Brodie, Kimberley Campisano, Richard L. Carson, Tyrus Clutter, Christine Crockett, Colette Crutcher, John Dickinson, Suzy Farren, Beth Fein, Margaret Jo Feldman, Nancy Garcia, Michael Goldman, Rinat Goren, Tm Gratkowski, Alison Heath, Rob Hugel, Sharka Hyland, Leonard Jewler, Kay Kang, Pantea Karimi, Rachel Katz, Leslie Kerby, TJ Mampalam, Daniel McClain, Dan McGarrah, Lori Murphy, Priscilla Otani, Stacy Pearl, Roz Ritter, Wendy Robushi, David Rockwell, Jenny Rosen, James Shefik, Elizabeth Sher, John Sheridan, Catherine Sherman, Joni Marie Theodorsen, Prince Varughese Thomas, and Tanya Wilkinson.

Featured Online Artists:
Chai A'lilharder, Will Ashford, Jean Brodie, Kimberley Campisano, Kimberley Campisano, David Coons, Helene Paulette Cote, John Dickinson, Beth Fein, John Ferrell, Pilar Gagliasso, Michael Goldman, Sharka Hyland, Kay Kang, Ree Katrak, Patricia Leeds, Suki Liebow, Sara Lisch, David Mar, Wendy Marlatt, John Martin, Deanne McKeown, Cindy Ostroff, Doug Page, Stacy Pearl, Michael Rainey, David Rockwell, Elizabeth Sher, John Sheridan, Ruth-Anne Siegel, Robynn Smith, Sally Kristina Smith, Laurie Szujewska, Joni Marie Theodorsen, Prince Varughese Thomas, Jonathan Tibbit, Stuart Wagner, Stuart Wagner, Tanya Wilkinson, Sheila Wood, and Kat Wright


Juried By:
Jack Fischer, Jack Fischer Gallery, San Francisco

Juror Statement:
For a long time, I resisted text in art—whether painted or sculpted. I simply didn’t get it. I fought against it, tooth and nail. To me, words on a canvas felt like being pushed through a single doorway, forced into one interpretation that left me with nothing more to discover. The work seemed to do all the thinking for me, leaving me without agency, without curiosity, without room to explore. I had always believed art to be a two-way street—an exchange of emotions, ideas, and narratives between artist and viewer.

And yet, words carry their own undeniable power. Artists know this. Which leads to that revelatory moment: so that’s what text is.

Can a word, a letter, or a phrase hold the same multiplicity of meaning as a landscape, a portrait, or an abstraction? In art, language is never just text—it brings texture, tone, color, and attitude. It shifts us from merely looking to something closer to listening. In this way, composition—whether of words or images—satisfies our deep need for pattern and meaning.

Words, symbols, numbers, gestures, signs, and expressions—all of them transmit ideas and concepts. And yet, when text dominates as image, I often feel deprived of my own pathways into the work, cheated of the many doors ambiguity opens.

But when text begins to dissolve into abstraction, when letters and words transform into painted metaphors, semaphores pointing forward, that’s when the real magic begins. That’s when we ride the wave of imagery into new meanings, when ambiguity and word-play reemerge.

Perhaps the play between surface and depth—the balance between clarity and ambiguity—is the true key. It’s there we find the richest possibilities, the openings that keep art alive.

Exhibition: November 15, 2025 - January 10, 2026