Someday we’ll call this the Age of Anxiety, and we’ll marvel at it all. We'll wonder how we ever thought there could or should be an Age of Individualism, and how the turn to community and reciprocity was so panicky and uncomfortable. How so many of us, during a heightened moment, found comfort in remembering our place within the cosmos, or within geological time. Our smallness in relation to all of time — 13.8 billion years, give or take — takes some of the pressure off. Someday we’ll remember how we used to forget that part, our smallness, and we’ll be charmed by our perceptions.

That’s my future-thinking, anyway. As I sat among Matthew Willie Garcia’s sumi ink and mokuhanga print works of planetary movement and space in the exhibition “Enter the Void,” now on view at the Lawrence Arts Center, I felt a quiet within me and stopped. My list of commitments for the day were silenced; I filled my lungs with air and considered space. In particular, I thought about what space means — the space among the cells in the my body, space amid the thoughts in my head, and the space beyond me and us and into the great unknown.

Consisting of 13 black-and-white works in sumi ink or mokuhanga printmaking, in “Enter the Void” Garcia uses traditional Japanese materials to present imaginative views of the cosmos. On the artist's website, Garcia describes themselves as a queer, extra-dimensional explorer. This approach is apparent throughout their current exhibition. Theirs is an artistic vision that embraces the "what ifs" across space and time that we have not yet seen; familiar worlds vast and powerful.

Let’s remember our art history for a moment and ponder the largesse of the galaxies Garcia depicts with sumi ink and mokuhanga. Here, the artist is making a bold artistic move. Sumi ink painting, a Japanese tradition using black ink, emphasizes the artist’s individual strokes on the paper. Mokuhanga printmaking, also a Japanese technique, employs water-based ink and hand-carved wood blocks printed individually by the artist.

With these art-making processes, Garcia is connecting their extra-dimensional futures to the traditions of the past, which also connects the viewer with both the galactic unknown and the history that led to this moment. The size of the works, many spanning four feet in length or more, portraying exacting circles done in an unforgiving medium without apparent mistakes, is exquisite.

“Embracing the Void,” a large sumi ink diptych with acrylic and colored pencil, presents a deep-black sphere divided by the space between the papers. Interstellar clouds, planets, and stars circle toward it. It’s an ominous but quiet image; the title tells us the movement is inward and the black is a void. And that black! Deep, rich, unreflective. Shadows underneath the swirling matter create depth, a noiseless but ominous expanse.

“The Distance Between,” a wall-size triptych, reflects Japanese art in both medium and subject the waves of Garcia’s stellar wind echo the waves found in many classic Japanese screens, such as Ikeno Taiga’s “Impressive View of the Go River” from 1769. Garcia’s work is arguably more dramatic with planets swarmed and tilted, and again the black void pulls everything toward it. Distant planets and stars, set so far away, remind the viewer that space flight into forever is possible.

“Reaching the Unknown” pulls the chaotic rhythms of the universe toward a spiritual realm of order and simplicity. Planets morph and bend like hot lava as they pull heavenward toward a space centered on a black circle and the firm white circles surrounding it. Studying the work, I thought of Dante’s “Paradiso,” when the souls of the faithful ascend to Paradise and become orbiting light, pure and in concert with one another. Chaos transforms into order and adoration.

The placement of the exhibition in the front gallery of the Lawrence Arts Center adds a beautiful dimension to the installation. The lights on the black and white images glow at night through the front windows, creating a striking moment of art in the bustling downtown area of Lawrence. It draws curious people in.

For us to be curious cosmonauts is Garcia’s intention. In their artist’s statement, they write that this black and white series “investigates the unknown, both in the cosmos and within the self.” The works are successful in this way. Sitting in the gallery alone on a rainy Tuesday, I felt the sublime and the vast expanse of never-ending unknown. It took my breath away, as if I were in a wondrous dimension, unsure of my place in it. Perhaps that will be the new age before us: One that considers the abundance of life and space and time, and honors that in ourselves and in each other.

THE DETAILS

“Enter the Void”
September 12-October 25, 2025, at the Lawrence Arts Center, 940 New Hampshire St. in Lawrence, Kansas

The Lawrence Arts Center hours are 9 a.m-8 p.m. Monday-Saturday with extended hours until 9 p.m. Fridays.

Admission is free to the public, and the facility is accessible to people with physical disabilities.

Learn more about exhibitions at the Lawrence Arts Center.

Leslie VonHolten is an arts and environmental writer who lives in Lawrence, Kansas. She is co-editor, with Thomas Fox Averill, of "Kansas Matters: 21st-century Writers on the Sunflower State," which was published this month.

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