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The UCSB Metaphysical Spirituality Project is pleased to announce Cosmic Synastry: Collective Codes and Personal Readings, a group art exhibition opening October 1st and on view through October 31st at the College of Creative Studies (CCS) Gallery on the UC Santa Barbara campus. Curated by Vanessa Ayala and Lucy Bell, the exhibition corresponds to astrology, a shared language that carries inherited meaning while remaining open to personal interpretation. Each in their own ways, art and astrology have mediated the individual and the collective for millennia.
Bringing together eight artists across various mediums, Cosmic Synastry highlights the productive tension between collective understanding and individual interpretation as an essential condition of meaning. In place of a conventional biography, each artist’s astrological birth chart will be presented alongside their work to situate the artist and viewer in a shared symbolic system: astrology. Taking its name from astrological synastry, the practice of comparing two individuals’ birth charts to discover the relationship between them, this exhibition encourages viewers to draw from their personal experiences and collective understandings of the zodiac to generate interpretations of each artwork’s meaning. Cosmic Synastry encourages viewers to interpret symbols through signs, the artists’ and their own.
Among the works on view is Tourmaline’s Pour the boos around me (2022-23), a C-print of the Miami-based artist, filmmaker and activist surrounded by their loved ones and lush greenery in a pink frame that is color-matched to the scarf pictured on the artist’s friend. Madeleine Eve Ignon’s time quilt (2026) use of various materials like the artist’s paint rags and cyanotype continues the artist’s exploration of how painting, graphic design, and craft can be combined, both conceptually and formally. The artist will present an excerpt of a new performance piece titled Go mamma go during the opening reception on October 1, 2026. Contemporary artist, Deanna Barahona’s Balloons on the Ceiling After the Apartment Wedding in Reseda (2024), renders a scene from a family celebration using screen printed ceramic tile, acrylic, grout, mylar. The saturated and playful palette reflects the artist’s signature “Cosmic Pop” aesthetic, a term coined by Barahona to describe the fusion of 1990s/2000s Wacky Postmodernism (Wacky Pomo) and the rich imagery of Latin American domestic spaces in Southern California.
Cosmic Synastry also features an eclectic selection of books, posters and print ephemera from UCSB Library’s American Religions Collection, the most expansive archive of metaphysical sources in the U.S. Highlights include a 1935 Llewellyn Publishing Astrological Calendar; a 1972 copy of English astrologer Sybil Leek’s Astrology magazine and natal chart production ephemera from the early 20th century. Together, these materials underscore the enduring history of astrological interpretation within spiritual and artist communities.
The show’s orbit extends to other parts of campus and downtown Santa Barbara through public programming. Lectures, workshops, and collaborations with various organizations foster audience participation, bridging the exhibition’s celestial world to the communities that give it meaning.
Artists in Cosmic Synastry include:
Deanna Barahona, Linda Ekstrom, Madeleine Ignon, Young Joon Kwak, Shana Moulton, Clara Niebas, Tourmaline, and Georgina Treviño.
Cosmic Synastry: Collective codes and personal readings is curated by Vanessa Ayala and Lucy Bell.
This exhibition is supported by a generous grant from the John Templeton Foundation (63627), which funds the Metaphysical Spirituality Project, led by UCSB professor Joseph Blankholm. Additional support for public programming has been provided by the Walter H. Capps Center for the Study of Ethics, Religion, and Public Life; the College of Creative Studies; and the UCSB Multicultural Center.
