THE SOCIAL LIFE OF SYMBOLS
What does a circle tell us about the artist who painted it? Who comes to mind when you see a lightbulb? What will a portrait of a famous rapper mean to future art historians? What does the word South mean to you?
This gallery begins with a simple idea: images do not speak on their own. We give them meaning. In doing so, they tell us something about artists, about ourselves, and about the times in which we live.
Sociologists call this perspective symbolic interactionism. Developed by thinkers such as George Herbert Mead and later named by Herbert Blumer, it suggests that meaning is created through interaction. Objects, words, and images do not carry fixed definitions. Their significance emerges as we use them, respond to them, and negotiate what they stand for together.
At its core, symbolic interactionism reminds us that meaning is not stored inside an object. It develops through our relationships to it—and to one another. This is the lens I bring to the work of NIAD studio artists in this gallery, which you can see alongside my text and below.
SELF
I begin with Felicia Griffin and Shana Harper, whose use of space, shape, and absence explores ideas of the self.
Griffin connects geometric shapes to her understanding of herself and the world around her. She explains, “The circle is inside of me, a square too. I see it in the world too.” In a risograph print such as Untitled, where a circle sits inside a square, viewers encounter more than formal design. The shapes become a visual language for Griffin's interior life and our possible outward perception.
Similarly, in her linocut print Gold Scroll, Harper uses color and negative space to draw the eye toward both presence and absence. As she has said, “I like to work with holes or gaps… Sometimes that’s me, sometimes I’m in a hole trying to get out of it and a lot of my art is about my feelings.” The gaps in her work are not empty; they are expressive.
DISABILITY POWER
In one digital print by artist Rebecca Jantzen, a wheelchair is surrounded by words; in another, a lit lightbulb takes center stage. Both include the phrase disability power.
By pairing a single phrase with different symbols, Jantzen invites us to reconsider the images we associate with disability and the assumptions we bring to ideas of visibility. Disability power can mean many different things.
CATS
If Jantzen’s work shows how one idea can be expressed through a variety of symbols, the work of Ann Meade and Dorian Reid demonstrates the reverse: the same symbol can carry very different meanings.
Both artists use cats. In Meade’s work, cats appear as gentle, stationary companions— emerging through watercolor paint techniques, smiling from quilt squares, or perched together on a purse-shaped sculpture. In Reid’s practice, cats are animated participants in public life, including as protestors. Through the lens of two artists, the familiar feline form shifts from comfort object to social actor.
CELEBS
Images of famous figures anchor artwork in time and place, offering viewers clues about cultural influence and collective memory. Halisi Noel-Johnson’s linocut of writer and speaker Maya Angelou; Raven Harper’s silkscreen of the activists from the Shakur Family; and Luis Estrada and Brandon Harris’ sculptures of wrestler Rey Mysterio do more than represent individuals. They situate the artworks within specific cultural histories: poetry, activism, hip-hop, film, professional wrestling and spectacle.
Each portrait invites viewers to consider what these figures symbolize now, what they might signify in the future, and what meaning they take on when considered in constellation with each other.
VERSUS
This gallery concludes with a series of posters by Jason Powell-Smith. Using the familiar “this versus that” format—symbolic logic, in-of-itself—he distills everything from shared spectacles to mundane realities into bold visual contrasts. These pairings prompt viewers to reflect on their own allegiances, be it within the worlds of sports teams, regions, or payment options, while inviting viewers to consider how our lived experience gets rendered into symbolic shorthand.
Across cats, circles, celebrities, and language the works in this gallery remind us that shared symbols are never neutral. They are shaped by artists, interpreted by audiences, and reshaped by the social worlds we inhabit. In paying attention to art and the symbols within the work, we begin to see not only the art more clearly, but the artists and our world as well.
