(JERSEY CITY, NJ) -- Gallery 14C presents Art (Official) Intelligence: The Human Hand in an Algorithmic World from February 19 – April 2, 2026. This is the culminating exhibition of the Project 14C 2025–2026 Artists-in-Residence program. Featuring work by the program's inaugural cohort, the exhibition brings together artists working across painting, sculpture, textiles, digital media, and performance to consider what it means to create at a moment when automation and machine-generated imagery increasingly shape visual culture.
Rather than rejecting technology, Art (Official) Intelligence centers the human choices behind creative work — attention, physical labor, intuition, risk, and emotional judgment. The artists on view demonstrate that while technology may influence process, meaning emerges through lived experience and engagement, positioning technology as a collaborator rather than a replacement for artists.
Several artists in the exhibition directly explore this relationship. Multi-disciplinary artist Anna Collevecchio creates abstract paintings and interactive installations built through counted brushstrokes and human breath, making time and bodily participation integral to the work. Painter Velawsmo draws from advertising, signage, and digital graphics to examine how technology shapes identity and belief, using humor and invented symbols to reassert play and intuition within mass-produced systems. Artist George Goodridge creates “dimensional paintings” that combine painting and sculpture, shifting in appearance as viewers move around them and activating perception through physical interaction.
“Art (Official) Intelligence highlights the qualities that make human creativity distinct,” says Sophie Couche, Director of Gallery 14C. “It’s not about opposing technology, but about recognizing that art is driven by judgment, uncertainty, and lived experience — things that can’t be automated.”
Featuring works by: Alexis Caruso, Anna Collevecchio, Baby FuzZ, Benjamin Lee Sperry, Casey Sperry, Flying Knight, George Goodridge, Gnarly Casual, Jingyuan Yang, Lauren Krasnoff, Luiza Gottschalk, Matt Yacavone, Michele Bonds, PACHECO, Saehyun Paik, Sherly Fan, William Masters, Valeriya Fadeyeva, Velawsmo, Yang Dong
Curatorial Statement: Art (Official) Intelligence: Humanity in the Digital Age brings together the inaugural cohort of Project 14C artists-in-residence to examine how human creativity asserts itself in an era shaped by automation, algorithms, and synthetic imagery.
Rather than opposing technological intelligence, the exhibition centers what remains distinctly human: intuition, material decision-making, emotional risk, and imperfect gestures. Working across painting, sculpture, textile, digital media, and performance, the artists construct personal worlds grounded in touch, time, and subjective perception.
The works on view prioritize presence over speed, process over output, and vulnerability over polish, asking a timely question: what does it mean to create meaningfully when intelligence is increasingly automated, outsourced, and disembodied? Together, these works insist that art’s power lies not in efficiency or replication, but in the unpredictable act of making.
Curated by Alexis Caruso and Velawsmo. With conceptual development by
Alexis Caruso, Anna Collevecchio, George Goodridge, Flying Knight, Michele Bonds, Velawsmo, and William Masters. Artist video documentaries by Valeriya Fadeyeva.
Gallery 14C and Project 14C are programs of ARTS 14C, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, a multidisciplinary arts incubator and public platform rooted in Jersey City with a global mindset. Through residencies, exhibitions, a city-wide art fair, and community programs, ARTS 14C supports artists, expands access, and builds an inclusive future where art is treated as essential to community life.
