Exhibition at Kala Gallery : We’re a Mystery Which Will Never Happen Again

“we’re a mystery which will never happen again, a miracle which has never happened before” – E. E. Cummings

Kala Gallery is excited to present We’re a Mystery Which Will Never Happen Again, an exhibition exploring everyday myth, mystery, and the potential for discovery within the present moment. Featuring works by Woody De Othello, Jane Hambleton, David Huffman, Lucy Puls, Meghan Shimek, and Maryam Yousif, the exhibition invites viewers to reimagine daily life through curiosity, attention, and inquiry.

The exhibition also draws on the concept of ichigo ichie (一期一会), a philosophy rooted in the Japanese tea tradition and associated with tea master Sen no Rikyū. Meaning “one time, one meeting,” the phrase reminds us that every encounter is singular and unrepeatable. Later articulated in its contemporary form by Naosuke Ii during the late Edo period, the idea reflects a deep awareness of impermanence – an ethos of fully living shaped in times of political and social transition.

In a time marked by uncertainty and constant change, the works in this exhibition invite audiences to turn toward the immediacy of lived experience – where the ordinary becomes charged with emotion, memory, and possibility. Across sculpture, painting, drawing, textiles, photography, and print, familiar materials and forms are transformed into sites of wonder, prompting us to slow down and encounter the world anew.

In Woody De Othello‘s works, everyday domestic objects bend, slump, and animate with unexpected emotional weight. Infused with references to Nkisi traditions, these forms suggest that spirit and memory reside within the objects that surround us, inviting viewers to reconsider their own relationships to the familiar. His layered printmaking process further embraces chance and revelation, echoing the unpredictability of material transformation.

Jane Hambleton‘s intricate drawings and paintings offer quiet meditations on ephemerality. Through accumulative compositions that move between abstraction and representation, her work asks us to pause, look closely, and recognize the fleeting nature of perception. Each image unfolds like a visual rhythm or score.

David Huffman‘s work reimagines identity, memory, and the layered realities of the Black diasporic experience. Working through what he describes as “social abstraction,” Huffman constructs allegorical worlds where history, politics, and personal memory converge. His compositions draw on a wide range of references, from science fiction and music to art history and everyday life. Balancing humor with critical reflection, Huffman’s work invites viewers to navigate the in-between and complete the narratives he begins.

Lucy Puls engages with the material afterlives of objects, transforming discarded items into complex reflections on memory, value, and perception. In works such as Delapsus, cascading paper forms and embedded imagery blur the boundaries between presence and absence, reality and reconstruction, asking what is carried forward and what is left behind.

Meghan Shimek creates immersive, woven forms that balance fragility and strength. Her process embraces organic movement of hand weaving and imperfection, allowing materials to settle into intuitive configurations that speak to vulnerability, healing, and the passage of time.

Rooted in clay, Maryam Yousif‘s practice bridges ancient and contemporary worlds. Drawing on Mesopotamian histories and mythologies, her sculptural figures merge sacred and playful elements, reimagining cultural memory through a personal and diasporic lens.

Embracing instability not as disruption but as generative ground, We’re a Mystery Which Will Never Happen Again encourages us to remain present, to stay curious, and to recognize the extraordinary within the mundane.

Special thanks to Paulson Fontaine Press for generously loaning works by David Huffman and Woody De Othello for this exhibition.