Myth to Ritual
A national group exhibition by Gallery 263
on view
Artists:
Meli Bandera, Tarik Brown, Snow Chen, Nyala Honda, Payal Kumar, Jasmine Matos, Alexander McGady, Nilou Moochhala, and Naima White
The deeply human impulse to process the natural world has endured across generations, carrying cultural memory into the present. This national group exhibition brings together nine artists who reflect on storytelling traditions and the desire to foster new mythologies.
Myth to Ritual was originally inspired by tales told of a bunny on the moon across China, Japan, India and Mexico – stories that made sense of the shadows on Earth’s closest companion and the stars that connect us. Featuring work across fiber arts, painting, sculpture, film, and projection, this national exhibition honors traditional and contemporary storytelling formats as a testament to their endurance.
Across the exhibition, artists experiment with the tradition of myth – stories that unfold a worldview to explain a practice, belief or natural phenomenon – and ritual, or established forms of ceremony to honor cultural memory.
Artists consider how memory and history shape our relationships to home, identity, and imagined worlds. Among them, Payal Kumar’s chimera draws direct inspiration from folk art in her family’s home in North India, while Naima White creates glittering talismans stuffed with sage and lavender, inviting us to sit with the sensation and memory of home.
Jasmine Matos reflects on the memory embedded in terracotta, creating resilient, colorful beings within an ecosystem where they can live authentically as themselves. Tarik Brown, meanwhile, draws on the myth of “the storm” to examine the resonance and tension that emerge when past, present, and future fold into one another. Furthermore, the neon projections of Snow Chen blend ancient writing systems to contemporary formats, speaking to the transformation of storytelling and its longevity.
These works remind us that these stories we inherit are never fixed. Myth to Ritual reveals storytelling as a living practice – one that preserves cultural memory while making space for new interpretations, identities, and imagined futures.
preview
The chair is now empty and the birds are no longer singing (altardecers y telerañas)