The Compound is proud to present Materio-mancy: a group exhibition guest-curated by Nigerian-born Transdisciplinary artist and Cultural Producer VILLAGER, on view from July 31 to August 22, 2026.

Materio-mancy brings together eight (8) artists currently living and working in Baltimore City into a shared nexus of alchemical inquiry where material sensitivity operates congruently as method and magic, and contemporary urgencies meet historical continuities. Drawing upon a variety of mediums including painting, sculpture, assemblage, and installation, the participating artists invite the viewers to embrace, sense, and bear witness to the energy and the magic embedded in the material and the metaphysical, respective and independent of each artist’s temporal and spatial understanding of their practice of alertness which holds time and gesture beyond the body and space itself as divinatory alchemy. 

Featuringselect works from Alexander D’Agostino, Lehna Huie, G. Pack, VILLAGER, Winter Dior Hart, Jasmeen Al Rayyes, and Anna Divinagracia, Materio-mancy is a call to sustain attention to what you might not immediately hear, touch, see, feel. An invitation to the quiet, potent, and transformative magic which is felt at every level of surface, structure, and spirit. In this field where material and matter carries the magic of memory and intention, the exhibition calls viewers to stand closer and allow their inherent assumptions about what things are to be challenged & interrupted, inviting a slowed sensing, a reexamining one that lingers long enough to regenerate a consideration of what materials have passed through their own lives and what energies, histories, stories, and legacies those encounters have absorbed, deconstructed, produced, and transformed. 

Materio-mancy will be on view at The Compound, 2239 Kirk Ave, from July 31 to August 22, 2026. 

Join us for the Opening reception on July 31 from 6 PM – 8 PM, and the Artist Talk facilitated by local curators on August 22, 5 – 8 PM.

Gallery Hours: Fri & Sat 12 – 4 PM, Mon – Thur by appointment only.

Cover artwork: “The Return of Yaffa/Aroos al Bahr, 2025” by Jasmeen Al Rayyes

For purchase inquiry, please contact rui@compoundinc.org