Please join us at Index Art Center’s temporary event space in Newark’s Teachers Village for “A Place to Be” a solo exhibition by Kati Vilim
Opening Reception: Saturday, January 17, 6 to 9 PM
245 Halsey Street, Newark, NJ
A Place to Be is a solo exhibition by artist Kati Vilim, presenting a multidisciplinary, site-specific installation at Index Art Center in Newark, New Jersey. Designed in response to the gallery’s layout, the exhibition integrates painting, sculpture, tapestry, and digital animation, transforming the space into an immersive environment.
Rooted in abstraction, the installation explores non-representational visual language through both traditional and contemporary media. The evolving urban context of Newark—particularly Index Art Center’s pop-up space on Halsey Street—serves as a conceptual framework, reflecting themes of transition, ephemerality, and in-betweenness.
The exhibition’s title, A Place to Be, suggests both the immediacy of the present moment and an idealized space shaped by perception. Through a combination of hand-crafted and algorithmic processes, the exhibited artworks are bridging the tactile and the digital, inviting viewers to experience visual language as a universal, non-verbal system.
Featuring ceramic and plaster sculpture, Jacquard tapestry, relief, painting, and digital projection, each work stands independently while contributing to a cohesive abstract environment. As visitors move through the gallery, the installation unfolds over time, completing itself through individual perception and experience.
About the artist:
Kati Vilim is an abstract painter, her non-referential paintings create an experience of a universal geometry, imbued with language and culture -- a mix of conceptual op-art and geometric abstraction. Her media range from traditional techniques as oil painting, to site -specific multimedia installation and digital animation.
Kati Vilim earned her MFA from University of Fine Arts, Budapest, Hungary and Montclair State University, Montclair, NJ.
Her work has been exhibited within the United States and in Europe, including the exhibition: The Geometric Unconscious , held at the Sheldon Museum of Art in Lincoln, NE, and at galleries and institutions as tthe Paul Robeson Galleries, Rutgers, Newark, or Pen and Brush Gallery NYC, Mucciaccia Gallery, NYC, Vasarely Museum, and the Space Contemporary in Budapest, Hungary, the Monmouth Museum, in Lincroft NJ.
She was a recipient of Express Newark, a Rutgers Newark residency, Byrdcliffe Guild Artist Residency in Woodstock, NY, the ESKFF residency at Mana Contemporary in Jersey City.
Her work is held in several notable public and private collections, including the Vass Collection (Hungary), the Yuko Nii Foundation Collection (NY), and the Eileen Kaminsky Family Foundation Collection (NJ), Erste Bank Collection, Hungary, Rutgers University Collection, Newark, NJ
Concurrent Exhibition:
Light Sculptures by Sunil Garg are presented as a separate exhibition within the same space.
This exhibition features the transformative work of Sunil Garg, an artist who shapes light itself into dynamic, immersive sculptures. Garg’s installations blend natural and computer-driven illumination to engage viewers in themes of environmental impact, colonialism, and consumerism. His work, rooted in early training and experiences in India, merges scientific knowledge, environmental awareness, and avant-garde performance, creating pieces where light transcends material, becoming a vehicle for reflection and critical insight.
Many thanks to RBH Group for providing this exhibition space!
Admission is free and open to the public.
Location:
Index Art Center's temporary event space at Teachers Village
245 Halsey Street, Newark, NJ
Saturday, January 17, 6 to 9 PM
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Index Art Center
Newark, NJ 07102
www.indexartcenter.org
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