December 18, 2025
Kayla Witt
In Circles, Still Forward
Night Gallery
November 7 - December 20, 2025
Kayla Witt
One of the most satisfying things about Kayla Witt's exhibition at Night Gallery is the sense of connection between the paintings as what appears small in one canvas might be enlarged and completely occupy another. This creates an intriguing narrative flow across the works. For example, a lone puzzle piece hangs on a wall in the entry room. Around the corner in its complement, Searching for the Missing Piece (all works 2025), a floor tile of the same shape is missing. Similarly, a small sandwich board advertising "New Life" located at the edge of the large painting A Brief Pause Before Eternity becomes the true-to-size stand alone work Please Follow Signs. Many of Witt's humorous and slightly ironic paintings focus on quasi-urban landscapes of Los Angeles and the signage that adorns small businesses — specifically places that specialize in "self help" and "spiritual awakening." These paintings are filled with surreal and uncanny juxtapositions like an advertisement for "ASAP Divorce" on a facade next to a smaller street sign for the "Chapel of Guidance."
While the exhibition combines depictions of interior and exterior spaces, three large-scale exteriors are the most complex works and they set the stage for the interpretation of the other paintings. In Journey Home, Circling the Drain and Other Metaphors for Growth, and Brief Pause Before Eternity, Witt presents dryly photorealistic representations of typical Los Angeles environs depicting banal buildings that are chapels, psychic centers, and places for spiritual enlightenment. The structure in A Brief Pause Before Eternity is nestled between distant mountains, a wide sidewalk and a paved street. A tall tree situated behind the building extends into the sky like a church spire. To the side, a bush has been shaped into a topiary hand identical to the hand on the facade of the building in Journey Home. In this painting, the building surrounds a set of rooftop communication towers which could be used for an alien's journey home. Witt pays careful attention to detail here: circular tire tracks on the ground parallel the shape of the distant moon, linking earth and the heavens.
A row of smaller paintings suggest details from the larger works. Here, Witt creates painted posters that function as signage for spiritual consulting, palm readings, chakra balancing, as well as the entrance to a mortuary (Whenever You're Ready) that proclaims "Take Your Time We Will Wait." Over the Hill and Far Away is an advertisement for "Pathways (TM)" in which a stone path recedes into the distant hills of a bucolic landscape. Small stones form the shape of a question mark that is positioned above the text "The Final Mystery" in a painting titled lose Your Eyes. Similar stones appear in the painting As Above, So Below, a large vertical oil of floor filled with tan, purple and pink tiles — interlocking circles that resemble geometric flowers. At the very bottom are two realistically rendered female feet, now stationary, having already left foot prints higher up in the composition.
Also on exhibit are two highly detailed paintings of interiors. In I Guess I Have to, With Confidence Witt focuses on a stair shaped shelf positioned in front of a lightly toned wood-paneled wall. The floor tile is made from purple-blue hexagons similar in color to the transparent curtains that are filled with a more ornate pattern of geometric shapes. The light maroon-hued shelves are also semi-transpaent, allowing what is below them to be seen. The curious arrangement of objects includes: happy and angry bears on a seesaw, a fan, a birdhouse with bird feet, and a half carton with three eggs, one of which has a chick emerging from it. The more "spiritual" items are a lit candle, an ouroboros — a snake in the form of a figure-eight — a floating Celtic tree of life, and an angel wing mirror that contains an image of a woman's legs ascending a spiral staircase. Curiously, this spiral staircase also appears in the aforementioned Searching for the Missing Piece.
The true meaning of Witt's collection of objects and their relationship to one another is individualistic and depends on the viewer's spiritual acuity or convictions. Signifiers in the form of stickers, signs to buy souls and billboards that "Jesus can absolve sins" intermingle with ordinary, as well as surreal objects. Witt convincingly paints these uncanny scenarios with exactitude and compassion while suggesting there might be a different, better path through the uncertainties of contemporary culture and life. Her psychological spaces draw from observation and lived experience, yet also cross over into the realm of fantasy and the surreal.
In Circles, Still Forward
Night Gallery
November 7 - December 20, 2025
Kayla Witt
One of the most satisfying things about Kayla Witt's exhibition at Night Gallery is the sense of connection between the paintings as what appears small in one canvas might be enlarged and completely occupy another. This creates an intriguing narrative flow across the works. For example, a lone puzzle piece hangs on a wall in the entry room. Around the corner in its complement, Searching for the Missing Piece (all works 2025), a floor tile of the same shape is missing. Similarly, a small sandwich board advertising "New Life" located at the edge of the large painting A Brief Pause Before Eternity becomes the true-to-size stand alone work Please Follow Signs. Many of Witt's humorous and slightly ironic paintings focus on quasi-urban landscapes of Los Angeles and the signage that adorns small businesses — specifically places that specialize in "self help" and "spiritual awakening." These paintings are filled with surreal and uncanny juxtapositions like an advertisement for "ASAP Divorce" on a facade next to a smaller street sign for the "Chapel of Guidance."
While the exhibition combines depictions of interior and exterior spaces, three large-scale exteriors are the most complex works and they set the stage for the interpretation of the other paintings. In Journey Home, Circling the Drain and Other Metaphors for Growth, and Brief Pause Before Eternity, Witt presents dryly photorealistic representations of typical Los Angeles environs depicting banal buildings that are chapels, psychic centers, and places for spiritual enlightenment. The structure in A Brief Pause Before Eternity is nestled between distant mountains, a wide sidewalk and a paved street. A tall tree situated behind the building extends into the sky like a church spire. To the side, a bush has been shaped into a topiary hand identical to the hand on the facade of the building in Journey Home. In this painting, the building surrounds a set of rooftop communication towers which could be used for an alien's journey home. Witt pays careful attention to detail here: circular tire tracks on the ground parallel the shape of the distant moon, linking earth and the heavens.
A row of smaller paintings suggest details from the larger works. Here, Witt creates painted posters that function as signage for spiritual consulting, palm readings, chakra balancing, as well as the entrance to a mortuary (Whenever You're Ready) that proclaims "Take Your Time We Will Wait." Over the Hill and Far Away is an advertisement for "Pathways (TM)" in which a stone path recedes into the distant hills of a bucolic landscape. Small stones form the shape of a question mark that is positioned above the text "The Final Mystery" in a painting titled lose Your Eyes. Similar stones appear in the painting As Above, So Below, a large vertical oil of floor filled with tan, purple and pink tiles — interlocking circles that resemble geometric flowers. At the very bottom are two realistically rendered female feet, now stationary, having already left foot prints higher up in the composition.
Also on exhibit are two highly detailed paintings of interiors. In I Guess I Have to, With Confidence Witt focuses on a stair shaped shelf positioned in front of a lightly toned wood-paneled wall. The floor tile is made from purple-blue hexagons similar in color to the transparent curtains that are filled with a more ornate pattern of geometric shapes. The light maroon-hued shelves are also semi-transpaent, allowing what is below them to be seen. The curious arrangement of objects includes: happy and angry bears on a seesaw, a fan, a birdhouse with bird feet, and a half carton with three eggs, one of which has a chick emerging from it. The more "spiritual" items are a lit candle, an ouroboros — a snake in the form of a figure-eight — a floating Celtic tree of life, and an angel wing mirror that contains an image of a woman's legs ascending a spiral staircase. Curiously, this spiral staircase also appears in the aforementioned Searching for the Missing Piece.
The true meaning of Witt's collection of objects and their relationship to one another is individualistic and depends on the viewer's spiritual acuity or convictions. Signifiers in the form of stickers, signs to buy souls and billboards that "Jesus can absolve sins" intermingle with ordinary, as well as surreal objects. Witt convincingly paints these uncanny scenarios with exactitude and compassion while suggesting there might be a different, better path through the uncertainties of contemporary culture and life. Her psychological spaces draw from observation and lived experience, yet also cross over into the realm of fantasy and the surreal.