EXHIBITION: JW Toftness
When Seeds Are Sent for Flowers
JW TOFTNESS
Friday, September 4, 2026 – Saturday, October 24, 2026
EXHIBITION PREVIEW & ARTIST TALK | Thursday, September 3, 6pm
FIRST FRIDAY ART WALK OPENING | Friday, September 4
Candela presents When Seeds Are Sent for Flowers, a selection of works from JW Toftness’ recent series, To Redecorate a Dream.
To Redecorate a Dream explores the psychological, even ontological, divide we appear to construct between digital space and tangible reality.
To convey this entanglement of virtual and visceral, the main sculptural pieces featured in the project serve as critical links between process and concept. I construct them using a basic, pulpy artistic material—papier-mâché—and the final works act in conjunction with, and counterpoint to, the advanced tools of a digital photography workflow.
I utilize color theory and take inspiration from visual culture. Specific instances of inspiration drawn range from Michelangelo’s The Creation of Adam to Jean Baudrillard’s photographs to the default background for the Windows XP operating system, and claimed to be the most viewed photograph in history.
JW Toftness (b. 1984) is an MFA student at the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD). His work focuses on human relationships with technology and on slippages between perceived and mediated realities. Toftness was named as one of the Top 25 to Watch in Lenscratch’s 2026 Student Prize competition and he is part of the 2026 Critical Mass Top 200. His work is included among the finalists for the 21st Edition of the Arte Laguna Prize, with the accompanying exhibition held in Venice, Italy. He has been selected to attend Review Santa Fe in October 2026 and is a featured artist in New South, Volume 2: Double Vision (Atlanta Center for Photography, 2025). His work was exhibited in UnBound14! at Candela Photographic Arts in Richmond, VA, and in other group shows at: Atlanta Photography Group, Atlanta, GA; Office Space Gallery, Detroit, MI (as part of the NOVA24 Photo + Film Festival); XoXo Gallery, Baltimore, MD; Ingram Library Gallery, University of West Georgia, Carrollton, GA; Rhode Island Center for Photographic Arts, Providence, RI; Oregon Contemporary, Portland, OR; and ATHICA, Athens, GA. His work has also appeared in multiple online exhibitions hosted by Through the Lens Collective (South Africa), Lenscratch, and Blue Sky Gallery (Portland, OR). Cleo the Project Space put on Toftness’s solo exhibition, Coda, in December 2025; his MFA Thesis exhibition, Eidolon, was presented at SCAD’s Alexander Hall in April 2026.
