Stephanie Williams: Common Matter
February 6 @ 6:00 pm - February 18 @ 3:00 pm
Free
Guichelaar Gallery | Feb. 6 – 18, 2026
Stephanie Williams’ exhibition Common Matter brings together ceramic wall sculpture and framed photography to trace the repeating structures that appear across nature and human design. The show includes modular ceramic forms that shift between geometric and organic designs, alongside photographs which explore cosmic patterns at the microscopic level. Across mediums, the work invites viewers to look closely at how familiar patterns emerge at different scales, from crystalline structures to engineered surfaces.
Williams explores the idea that the universe is built from recurring visual and mathematical “rules” that show up in both organic building blocks and artificial systems. The work considers proportion and measurement as a universal expression of those “rules” (including spiral and growth patterns associated with the Fibonacci sequence) and asks how the macro and the micro mirror one another.
This body of work is informed by diverse influences, from historical cosmologists such as Johannes Kepler to Williams’ daily encounters with the patterns embedded in the world around her. Over time, she has become increasingly interested in how micro-patterns replicate themselves in both large and miniature form, and how humans often echo these same micro-patterns in their design, technology, and impulse to create.
Williams’ studio practice is rooted in ceramics, using a combination of throwing, handbuilding, and slipcasting. The photographic work extends the investigation of her exhibition’s thematic concepts through digital microscopic imagery and black-and-white analogue film.
Ultimately, Common Matter asks viewers to reflect on their existence within the universe and their relationship to it at a fundamental structural level. In the spirit of Carl Sagan’s observation that humanity is “a way for the universe to know itself,” the work suggests that the patterns we notice (and the ones we recreate) are not separate from us, but part of what we are.
About the artist
Stephanie Williams is an Indianapolis-based artist in Big Car Collaborative’s CAMi Long-Term Artist Residency program. She graduated from the Herron School of Art and Design in 2019 and has exhibited in a variety of spaces and galleries across Indiana. Williams has worked at American Art and Clay Company (AMACO) going on ten years.