Visual Cache

Angelica Yudasto, Edward Salas, Xinan Helen Ran, Michael Hambouz, Quindo Miller, Pablo Mariano Diaz, Paz Rocio Mallea Rubilar, and Shivani Mithbaokar

Curated by eri king

October 17 - November 9, 2025

Field of Play Gallery’s latest exhibition, Visual Cache, explores the diverse ways in which artists engage with themes of memory, cultural identity, and language through visual processing. The term “visual cache” refers to a temporary storage space within the brain’s working memory that handles visual information. It retains observable features such as color, form, and object location. This mechanism plays a vital role in mental rotation and spatial navigation, enabling the mind to manipulate images (Baddeley and Hitch 1974).

Visual Cache features eight artists whose work ranges from abstraction and representation across various mediums, including painting, glass etching, drawing, ceramics, living sculpture, and installation. This exhibition positions these artworks as repositories of memory, highlighting the unique approach of each artist. It emphasizes the nuanced ways memories are stored and then transformed through process, gesture, and/or language. The exhibition suggests that artworks contain fragments of the artist’s life, serving as tangible representations of memory. These pieces illustrate how personal and collective histories are continually transformed by time, perspective, adaptation, and reinterpretation.

Pablo Mariano Diaz's paintings explore a process reminiscent of printmaking, where he layers images by painting on a separate surface before transferring them onto the canvas. As each layer is applied and removed, traces of the previous layers become visible, embracing chance and residue as metaphors for memory. His latest body of work features scenes of New York architecture, enriched with textures and a color palette that evokes his childhood home in Cuba, along with references to art historical painting.

Angelica Yudasto's glass etchings capture the fragility of embodied memory through abstract mark-making suspended between surfaces, resembling traces of lived experiences. Each piece begins with a base layer of colored glass featuring an initial drawing. Additional glass layers are hand-etched on both sides and then fused in a kiln to create a unified form. The transparency of the glass reveals Yudasto’s marks from different moments, demonstrating how the passage of time alters perception and understanding.

Paz Rocio Mallea Rubilar’s abstract works are guided by intuition and imagination, transforming the vibrant colors of Chilean television and home décor into compositions that resonate with a sense of nostalgia. Her paintings, Well wisher and Pulsar, evolve through an inductive process of contingency, where each mark informs the next, reflecting a constant negotiation between impulse and control. These artworks serve as repositories of Rubilar’s experiences with color and form, developed through a process of call and response that materializes memory through movement and gesture.

Edward Salas’s ceramic sculptures reimagine popular American brands by reconfiguring their labels with Spanish words, transforming recognizable consumer imagery into thoughtful reflections on distance, loss, and adaptation. These vessels serve as linguistic containers for memory, embodying the feelings of displacement and the nuances that arise through translation.

For example, one piece alters the Doritos label with the word Roto, which means "broken" in Spanish, suggesting fragmentation and resilience. Another work features the term Lejanía, which translates to “distance” or “remoteness.” This word evokes both the physical separation from loved ones and the emotional longing felt when far from home or one’s origins.

Michael Hambouz’s three-dimensional paintings explore symbolic visual language and perception. His geometric, maze-like compositions guide viewers through a visual labyrinth, asking them to merge acts of wayfinding and interpretation. In the work titled Psst, red and black striped snakes zigzag through a grassy field, their patterned bodies forming the word itself, which is subtly hidden within the composition. This suggests that the painting is aware of its own surreptitious code, encouraging the viewer to search for clues that may not be immediately evident. These striped snakes, specifically coral snakes, are among the most venomous in North America, though they only attack when threatened.

In Procedural Signal (Air II), Hambouz continues this theme of concealment and revelation by embedding the word "gasp" within its patterned geometry. This word evokes shock while also containing "asp," referencing the serpent. In both works, the snake serves as a visual symbol that shifts between language, allegory, image, surface, and depth. Through their trompe l’oeil interplay of flatness and dimensionality, Hambouz’s paintings function like a visual cache, storing and disguising information right before our eyes. This prompts viewers to reconstruct meaning through layered perception and memory.

Quindo Miller’s Keep It Moving is a living, organic sculpture that mimics the appearance of coral reefs. It is cast from concrete molds and embedded with weeds collected from their backyard. This work explores how life adapts and perseveres despite constraints, transforming elements that are often overlooked or controlled into symbols of renewal. By drawing parallels between coral, algae, and weeds, Miller examines how the labels of “native” and “invasive” are influenced by colonial histories and maintenance systems. The sculpture serves as a material memory of place and circumstance, capturing resilience and preserving traces of ecological and cultural adaptation over time.

Shivani Mithbaokar creates interior spaces where decorative motifs resemble bodily forms, treating the body as a type of landscape. Her works, Cycle Breaker and Heart Take Flight, are painted directly onto wallpaper, using existing patterns to unveil figures within reimagined environments. By merging imagery and ornamentation, Mithbaokar transforms patterned surfaces into psychological landscapes that carry traces of memory, emotion, and transformation. She describes her process as an excavation of inner worlds, layering figures and symbolic settings onto wallpaper to explore female agency and the body’s connection with nature. Through this material and conceptual layering, her work constructs new mythologies that challenge social hierarchies, reclaiming space for healing and self-definition.

Xinan Helen Ran’s site-specific vinyl installation features a quote from media theorist Douglas Rushkoff: “A new technology or a new possibility, something destabilizing, creates wobble in a whole lot of systems: those of us in culture, or counter-culture artsy people, psychedelic people, thinking people, living human playful people go wobble- cool!”

The word “wobble” captures the instability and continual recalibration that accompany technological and social change. In the context of Visual Cache, Ran’s work reflects the brain’s process of storing and reconfiguring information in real time. Like the visual cache itself, the installation operates as a temporary holding space, absorbing fragments of language and experience that shift meaning as viewers move through it. Ran visualizes perception in flux, inviting us to embrace uncertainty as an essential condition of adaptation and creative thought. The works of Pablo Mariano Diaz, Angelica Yudasto, and Paz Rocio Mallea Rubilar focus on memory as both a residue and process, materialized through gesture, transparency, and time. Edward Salas and Michael Hambouz use language as a visual code, transforming translation and symbolic imagery into acts of decoding and reinterpretation. Quindo Miller and Shivani Mithbaokar expand these themes by connecting ecology, healing, and reclamation, using forms that hold memory within organic and patterned structures. Finally, Xinan Helen Ran’s work expands the idea of the visual cache into a dynamic system of perception in constant flux, where technology and human adaptation continually reshape how we see and remember.

Visual Cache proposes that memory is not a fixed archive, but a living fluid field where images, languages, and bodies serve as temporary vessels of experience. Similar to the visual cache in our minds, these artworks invite viewers to navigate the space between what is seen and what is retained, holding space for both persistence and transformation.

ARTIST BIOS

Angelica Yudasto is a multi-disciplinary artist who explores bodily impressions and the vulnerability inherent in fragility and dissolution. Her site-sensitive installations are temporary recreations of her internal psyche, using fragmented forms and residual traces to transform the environment. Her works are often momentary and transient.

Recently, Yudasto has been experimenting with flame-worked glass and digitally printed fibers to expand her internal meditations in response to physical space. The resulting autobiographical pieces map and trace her memories, reflecting her attraction to soft objects, drawing, translucency, and mirroring. Born in Lima, Peru, and raised in Jakarta, Indonesia, Yudasto's experiences inform her artistic practice. She has held solo exhibitions at Tutu Gallery and Ki Smith Gallery in 2022, and participated in group exhibitions, including shows at the Blackfish Gallery in Portland, OR, the Art on the Vine Art Auction at the Portland Art Museum, and "If I know 3 languages then I can laugh 3 times as much," curated by Claire Foussard as part of Spring Break LA in 2024. Her residencies include Boyd’s Station Residency, Haystack Mountain School of Craft, the Marie Walsh Sharpe Foundation, the Wassaic Project, and Studio Kura, where she held a solo exhibition in Itoshima, Japan, in 2023.

Edward Salas (b. 1990) is a working artist from NYC. He has shown in various group shows in the United States and internationally including exhibitions such as ‘A Country Made of Ice Cream’ at Selena’s Mountain (Ridgewood, NY), ‘Transient Grounds’ at NARS Foundation through ACOMPI (NY, NY) ‘Surfacing’ at Ruiz-Healy Art (NY, NY) ‘The Jester Plays Dead’ at Selena’s Mountain (Ridgewood, NY), ‘Breakfast in America’ at Studio Schloss Jagerhof (Dusseldorf, Germany) ‘This Country’ at Wesleyan University (Middletown, CT), ‘Neither Here Nor There’ at the Manny Cantor Center (NY, NY), ‘El Museo Extemporáneo de Arte Popular’ at BWSMX in (CDMX), ‘Esurient Eyes’ at Regina Rex Gallery (NY, NY) and ‘American Fine Arts’ a traveling exhibition organized by BBQLA. He received his MFA in Painting from the Alfred-Düsseldorf Painting program at Alfred University in 2020 and his BFA from State University at New Paltz in 2013.

Xinan Helen Ran is an artist specializing in fabric, language, and found objects to construct emotional landscapes. She searches for the point where trauma, nihilism, and humor converge. Apart from her studio practice, she is an art educator, an art administrator, and an aspirational set designer for new theaters.

Ranked “Highbrow and Brilliant” by the New York Magazine Matrix, Ran is a 2024 recipient of a New York State Council on the Arts grant, a mentee in New York Foundation for the Arts’s Immigrant Artist Mentoring Program in 2023, a Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Arts Center resident in 2022, and a 2016 Ox-Bow Summer Fellow. Her public art installation, Mobile Home at Sunset Park in Brooklyn, was commissioned by More Art’s 2024 Emerging Artist program. She is currently a NARS Foundation resident artist.

Michael Hambouz (b. Niles, Michigan, 1977) is a first-generation Palestinian American multidisciplinary artist, multi-instrumentalist musician, and independent curator based in Brooklyn, NY. Hambouz received a B.A. in painting and sculpture with a minor in video from Antioch College in Yellow Springs, OH, and has been awarded a fellowship with The Studios at Mass MoCA in North Adams, MA, and two residencies with Wassaic Project in upstate New York. Solo/two-person exhibitions include Elijah Wheat Showroom (Newburgh, NY) Spring/Break Art Show (NYC), Moore College of Art with Jennifer White-Johnson (Philadelphia, PA), Neighbors (NYC), chashama (NYC), Kayrock (NYC), Troutbeck (Amenia, NY), The Krasl Art Center (St. Joseph, MI), 3S Artspace (Portsmouth, NH), Future Fairs with Talia Levitt (NYC), Brooklyn Academy of Music with Michael O’Shea (NYC), and a 20-year survey exhibition at alma mater Antioch College in 2018. Select group exhibitions include The National Arts Club (NYC), Club Rhubarb (NYC), Andrew Edlin Gallery (NYC), Print Center New York (NYC), 5-50 Gallery (LIC, NY), Wassaic Project (Wassaic, NY), Standard Space (Sharon, CT), Dominique Gallery (Los Angeles, CA), Urban Arts Space at Ohio State University (Columbus, OH), Northern-Southern (Austin, TX), Eve Leibe Gallery (London, UK), and The Centre for Contemporary Printmaking, (Bangor, N. Ireland). His work has been featured in Artnet News, New American Paintings, The New York Times, Design Milk, Hyperallergic, and Two Coats of Paint, among others, and can be seen in the public collections of Antioch College, Fidelity Corporate Collection, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Niles History Center, and NYU Langone Medical Center.

Quindo Miller (b. Guam) spent their formative years developing an interest in isolation, rituals, and repetition as they explored the island territory’s jungle environment. In 2012, after moving to the mainland United States, they earned their BFA at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Miller’s work investigates and expands their early preoccupations through the mediums of painting, drawing, installation, video, and sound. They have exhibited at venues in Nevada, California, and New York, including the Goldwell Open Air Museum, 5th Wall gallery, La Matadora Gallery, the Las Vegas Contemporary Art Center, and Hereart. In 2015, they exhibited in Uttarakhand, India, as part of their PECAH artist residency. Miller currently lives and works in Las Vegas.

Pablo Mariano Diaz (b. 1983, Camagüey, Cuba) is a mixed media painter living in New York. He received a BFA from The Cooper Union School of Art in 2006 and an MFA from Hunter College in 2018.

Paz Rocio Mallea Rubilar is a Chilean-born American artist who lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. Her practice includes painting, illustration, animation, and curated happenings. She has exhibited paintings at Below Grand, Field of Play, PeepSpace, See You Next Thursday, Deanna Evans Flatfile, and Piano Craft Gallery. She is currently the co-organizer of Watercolour Society, and she recently co-curated "Homebodies" at 334 Broome as well as "Trading Cards II" at Field of Play Gallery with Til Will. Mallea Rubilar co-founded the animation studio PilMawilla in 2021 and has produced animated music videos for Fire-Toolz, Lipsticism, Silver Liz, Immortal Wound, and M. Wagner. She was a recipient of the DNA residency in Provincetown, Massachusetts, in 2018, 2019, and 2020, and she was an artist-in-residence at Utopia 126 in Barcelona in 2018. She received her BFA from Pratt Institute in 2009.

Shivani Mithbaokar (b. Mumbai, India) is a visual artist based in Brooklyn, New York. Through painting, printmaking, ceramics, and found materials, she reimagines decorative motifs as abstract anatomies, exploring the body as a landscape of healing and transformation.

Mithbaokar has been an artist-in-residence at NARS Foundation and has exhibited at Yui Gallery (New York, NY), 440 Gallery (Brooklyn, NY), Greenpoint Gallery (Brooklyn, NY), and Arsenal Gallery (New York, NY), among others. She has participated in U.S. and India-based zine festivals, including MoCCA Arts Fest (New York, NY) and Bombay Underground Festival (Mumbai, India). Her work has been featured in New American Paintings, Hyperallergic, Friend of an Artist, and her self-published artist book is available at Printed Matter. She received her BFA in Illustration from Parsons School of Design (2018) and completed her MFA in Painting and Drawing from Pratt Institute in 2025.

CURATOR BIO

eri king (b. Kagoshima, Japan) is a multi-media artist, curator, and educator. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Studio Art and Art History from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, in 2011 and her Master of Fine Arts in Painting from Hunter College in 2018. She currently lives in Brooklyn, NY. King is currently a Visiting Artist Professor at Pratt Institute, teaching MFA Painting, and is a member-curator at Field of Play Gallery in Brooklyn, NY. King is one half of the collaborative art duo Eridan, alongside NY-based artist Daniel Greer.

From 2011 to 2014, she was the co-founder and curator of the artist-run spaces 5th Wall Gallery and Project Space in Las Vegas. Her work is in the permanent collection at the Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art and the City of Las Vegas in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Field of Play is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) contemporary art gallery in Gowanus, Brooklyn. Founded in 2022 by Matty Logsdon and run by a dedicated team of artists and curators, the gallery is fueled by a shared belief in the power of art to spark change and inspire meaningful dialogue. FoP presents artist-driven exhibitions and programming that expand visibility for emerging and underrepresented artists, connect diverse ideas, and foster a collaborative community.

Support for Visual Cache was made possible by Artist Resistance Through Solidarity (ARTS), a WOC-led foundation dedicated to providing grant opportunities for BIPOC creative and educational projects.

For more information about Visual Cache, including appointments, sales, and press inquiries, please contact Field of Play Gallery at fieldofplaybk@gmail.com.

Gallery hours are Saturdays and Sundays from 1-6 pm, or by appointment.