Join us for the opening of Compound Shadow

Friday, November 13, 2026, 7–10 PM

at BICA, 30 Essex St, Buffalo, NY

works by:

Gardner Astalos

Marjan Khorramgolkaran

Olivia Long

Sudi Wang

First, in art and writing, was the mark. A mark on a page invites a “reading”; a mark made on a surface enacts its maker onto the world; marks the beginning of a fundamental unit of meaning. 

Yet how in control are we of the marks we make, as artists? Can standardized, seemingly identical marks—the words on a page, passing for mere conveyors of information—ever truly be the same? What does a mark ‘stand for’? When we take meaning from a mark, what is it we’re actually seeing? 

In printmaking, any given mark can only have been made under the specific conditions of the moment—with that surface, that pressure, that medium, that moment. All of these specificities are hidden complications within the mark that passes for all other marks. 

Playing with repetition without replicability, pattern without predictability, Compound Shadow brings together four artists for whom markmaking in print matters for its own sake.

Free and open to all.