Call Description

PAREIDOLIA describes the human tendency to see familiar images—often faces, figures, or symbols—within randomness, texture, and abstraction. It is an instinct rooted in perception, memory, and imagination. Just as often, it is a creative act: noticing something uncertain and choosing to follow it.

This exhibition approaches pareidolia as a process of recognition and response—a moment when the artist sees something forming within the material and decides to bring it forward. Recognizing what we wish to see becomes both an act of perception and a gesture of authorship, shaped by hand, surface, and time.

Artists are invited to submit work that reflects this way of working: allowing images to surface gradually through drawing, painting, carving, layering, erasing, staining, assembling, or other physical processes. The emphasis is on analog practices where material qualities, chance marks, and intuition guide the final form.

Work may explore:

Faces or figures emerging from abstraction or texture

Pattern recognition and visual suggestion

The space between intention and accident

Imagery shaped by intuition rather than planning

Beauty discovered through process, imperfection, or ambiguity

This call is limited to non-digital media. Eligible submissions include painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, collage, assemblage, textiles, ceramics, and film-based or darkroom photography. Digital artwork, digital manipulation, and AI-generated work will not be considered.

PAREIDOLIA invites artists and viewers alike to slow down, look closely, and consider how meaning often appears not because it was planned—but because we were ready to see it.

Application Requirements

• Provide high-resolution images (JPEG/PNG), an brief artist statement regarding each work (150 words).
• All accepted works must be ready to install or hang. Artists are responsible for shipping/delivery. However, this gallery is committed to keeping artist costs to display down as much as possible. Call or email me, the gallerist. In other words, I enjoy stretching canvas for large rolled works which would otherwise be unshippable.

Eligibility Criteria

Open to professional and emerging artists.  Eligible works include painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, collage, assemblage, textile, ceramics, photography (film-based or darkroom), and other physically produced processes. Digital artwork, digital manipulation, and AI-generated work will not be considered.