SABBATIKAL presents On Matter, a curatorial project by Sacha H. Cohen, on view at The KINN in Venice, California, and co-hosted by The KINN and Venice Fine Arts (VFA). The exhibition features works by Charles Arnoldi and Woods Davy and will remain on view from February 28 through June 28, 2026.

At the core of On Matter is a significant presentation of paintings and sculptural works by Charles Arnoldi. For more than five decades, Arnoldi has examined the structural and expressive potential of wood by cutting, assembling, carving, and translating the physical language of sticks and beams into a rigorous visual syntax that moves between abstraction and objecthood. His practice dissolves distinctions between painting and sculpture, treating line as both gesture and armature.

The selected works span dynamic geometric compositions, layered painterly surfaces, and carved wood constructions that reveal material grain as both image and architecture. Across decades of production, Arnoldi has remained committed to the physical intelligence of matter itself. Even in his most chromatic works, structure remains paramount. Beneath color and movement lies an insistence on material truth.

In dialogue with Arnoldi, Woods Davy contributes two sculptures from his Ascension series, one Cantamar sculpture, and a smoke painting that functions as a study for his monumental stone works. Where Arnoldi cuts and constructs, Davy balances and collaborates. His gravity-defying assemblages of unaltered stone rely on tension and equilibrium rather than transformation. Stone rests within rusted steel armatures as if momentarily suspended between earth and air.

The exhibition includes a rare collaborative work created jointly by Arnoldi and Davy, constructed from welded rebar and stone. The sculpture brings together Davy’s gravitational equilibrium with Arnoldi’s linear structural sensibility, merging weight and gesture within a shared architectural framework. Rebar arcs cradle stone in suspended tension, producing a convergence of force and balance that echoes both practices while remaining distinctly hybrid.

Both artists are scheduled to present a major joint exhibition, Sticks and Stones, at the Laguna Art Museum in Fall 2027. On Matter offers an early opportunity to engage with the material investigations that underpin that forthcoming institutional presentation.

Across painting and sculpture, wood and stone, line and mass, On Matter centers on the enduring presence of material. The works do not depict matter. They enact it.