In Kayla Witt’s new works, a raw hunger for guidance, belonging, clarity, and healing pulses through every canvas. The exhibition maps the ways we approach the mysteries around us, stretching from ancient archetypes to modern-day mysticism. Promises of access to noumenal realms—plastered on posters and billboards—reveal just how widespread our age-old questions have become.
Witt employs the circle as a motif that keeps beginnings and endings in perpetual motion, much like the ouroboros swallowing its own tail. In the artist’s lexicon, this geometric form carries both sacred and utilitarian weight, symbolizing continuity and wholeness.
The paintings in the show function like portraits of singular and collective states of mind. Witt reminds us that interiority is both a physical and psychological space, selecting objects that stand in for experience itself. In “Searching for the Missing Piece,” a skeleton model reaches outward, its arms straining toward a cosmic orb on an endless ladder. The vastness of the universe becomes graspable—almost neutralized—when echoed in wallpaper patterns, wind chimes, and window appliqués. These shifts in scale offer brief respite from the panicked insignificance we feel amid planetary rhythms.
Symbols of Transformation and Shared Psychology
Throughout “In Circles, Still Forward,” signs of metamorphosis appear relentlessly. Roads are lined with numbers promising salvation; signs command the viewer to “Follow the Signs”; stones are etched with the word “Attune.” Caterpillars climb grass blades, chicks emerge from shells. It’s a cycle that insists renewal and rebirth are inevitable.
By placing storefronts peddling spirituality alongside awe-inspiring skyscapes, the artist imbues her work with a sense of transience. These sublime encounters nod to Carl Jung’s concept of the numinous—the experiential presence of the sacred. For Witt, this felt spiritual presence rescues us from isolation and reconnects us to the world.
Absurd details—like the Greek goddess Hecate adorning a roadside divorce lawyer—reveal how the semiotics of the landscape mirror our collective psyche. With candid humor, Witt questions what it means to live in both the spiritual and material realms.
Exhibition Details
- Artist: Kayla Witt
- Title: In Circles, Still Forward
- Venue: Night Gallery, Los Angeles
- Dates: 7 November – 20 December 2025
- Note: Witt’s first solo exhibition at the gallery.
