On the Table: Navigating Being
Kent Manske & Nanette Wylde
Selections from seven bodies of work including new 2026 prints
January 26–March 5, 2026
Reception: Wednesday, February 11, from 2:30–4
Kent & Nanette will be at the gallery Wednesday afternoons from 1–4pm. February 11, 18, 25 & March 4.
Vargas Gallery in the Gillmor Center, Mission College
3000 Mission College Blvd, Santa Clara, California
MAP
Exhibition Statement
Sometimes, it seems we are meant to know the answers to who we are, what we believe in, the paths we will follow, and how we will be in the far future. In reality, our lives and how we identify ourselves are journeys which require navigation, continual adjustment, and negotiation with ourselves and others.
Pre-made plans and systems of success might act as guidebooks, but the fact is that each of us is unique in mind, body, experience, and perception. The combination of all of the disparate elements that makes a person an “I” is the result of how an individual responds to and interprets their experiences, the choices one makes as they move along their own personal pathway.
On the Table: Navigating Being is a space of inquiry into the characteristics of identity where inheritance of nature and nurture, lived experience, and perception are open for reflection.
The works communicate in each of our minds through our attention and consideration. Overall, these works function as propositions rather than definitive narratives. They ask you to question and rethink your assumptions about yourself and others.
To navigate one’s existence is to remain conscious within complexity, to sustain awareness without resolution, and to accept uncertainty as an essential condition of contemporary life.
Table of Traits
Kent Manske & Nanette Wylde
Variable print collage installation
Table of Traits is a visual exploration of personality types and characteristics as they manifest in ourselves and others. We know much of the universe escapes human perception due to size, substance, location, or the nature of its light. While science has uncovered much about what drives us—internally, externally, and psychologically—we still lack an understanding of what humanity’s essence looks like on an individual, soulful level.
Are there specific organisms, such as enzymes, parasites, or bacteria, that code human character traits? If so, how might they appear on a molecular level? What might psychological states look like when our synapses fire with thought or action? What defines our humanity beyond the obvious physical manifestations of being upright, social, adaptive, curious, and creative? How might our inner spectrum appear, collectively and individually?
The Table of Traits is conceptually based on Jungian archetypes.
The Circus
Nanette Wylde
The Circus is a series of oil based monoprints on kozo and kozo layered with glama
Circuses are magical extravaganzas, they are also politically loaded sites. In this work the circus acts as a metaphor for the politics of the social body and the performances required and enacted upon all social beings, but especially females and people with “non-conforming” gender identities.
The circus also references the performance of human actors in political arenas because much of what happens in politics are acts of persuasion performed for donor and voter approval. Thus, the circus references the performance of identity, the enactments we orchestrate of ourselves on display, whether for outside approval or internalized sensibilities.
Being Aware
Kent Manske
Series of mixed media prints: monoprinting, screen printing, relief printing, and print collage
Being Aware (2026) is a series of eleven original prints, each incorporating a symbol from the artist book Fear (2002). Over two decades later, the issues addressed in Fear still exist.
Negative tribalism and hatred toward those who identify differently than oneself have intensified—echoed from the highest levels of government and amplified through grassroots movements that seek to control language, dismiss diverse perspectives, and undermine knowledge. Debate and dialogue have often been replaced with threats and intimidation, reshaping the fabric of public life.
Through revisiting these symbols, Being Aware invites a different response: to see the world as layered, complex, and full of possibility; affirming the power of diverse perspectives to challenge divisive strategies; overcome ignorance; move beyond narrow, fundamentalist viewpoints; and inspire curiosity and wonder.
Fear
Kent Manske
Relief-printed artist book
Fear is a handmade artist book of eleven prints reflecting on the United States’ response to the September 11, 2001 attacks.
In the wake of the attacks, national leadership publicly urged citizens to “live life normally” and to go shopping, while simultaneously promoting fear of others instead of encouraging critical reflection on cultural, political, and imperial practices. Repeated directives to “live in fear,” amplified by mainstream media, shaped the national narrative.
Each of the eleven symbols addresses a range of issues, including the manipulation of information, the ownership of knowledge, and the instability of truth.
Descriptors
Nanette Wylde
Electronic flipbook
Descriptors are adjectives and occupations which interact in nine different randomized structures.
The work addresses an interest in diversity of human personality and the particularities of individuality: How do each of us come to inhabit our various identities, and more insistently, how do we use language to define ourselves and others.
Your Own Light
Kent Manske & Nanette Wylde
Animation
Your Own Light juxtaposes diverse human facial profiles and communication postures, which glow with a soft blue light, in an irregularly looped animation.
We are experiencing a time when technology is profoundly affecting not only the way we communicate with each other, but also how we interpret and receive communication. We are also becoming an increasingly visual culture. At the same time much of our interpersonal communication takes place as bits of text on small handheld screens without the benefit of visual clues which inform nuanced meanings.
Among the questions it asks are: Do I know that person? Who does this remind me of? Is that me? How do I communicate? How am I perceived? Who am I?
Foodies: Seven West Coast Foodie Vignettes
Kent Manske & Nanette Wylde
Artist book: letterpress and screenprint, 46 press runs, 25 colors, edition of 57
Foodies is an artist book which explores the diversity of meaning in food related language. Seven letterpress printed folios feature original stories and illustrations.
Each story has a contemporary theme, employs its title word in as many different definitions as is possible, and begins with a West Coast table setting. The Foodie vignettes are: Can, Chop, Grill, Jam, Pickle, Poach, and Salt.
The illustrations are based on produce from our home garden. Essential elements of our lifestyle include growing, harvesting, sharing, and preparing our own food.
Meaning Maker
Kent Manske & Nanette Wylde
Conceptual art in the form of fill out form pamphlets
Meaning Maker is a conceptual, social practice art project which currently consists of ten questionnaires on a range of topics. The project takes form as a series of fill out form pamphlets. Each “edition” focuses on a single subject.
Meaning Maker is both a critique of contemporary American culture and a tool to engage in self reflection in an entertaining and thoughtful manner.
The Meaning Makers are: Academic Conference, American Citizenship, Art Viewing Experience, Control, Family Gathering, Food, Higher Education, Periodic Personal Evaluation, Relationship to Nature, and U.S. Presidential Elections. Free for download at meaningmaker.org