February 10, 2026
Vanguard Culture + Aarize are proud to announce Jon Savage as the winning artist of The Art of Everyday Culture, our multidisciplinary open call celebrating creativity woven into daily life.
Jon Savage is a Deaf visual, multimedia artist and poet based in San Diego whose work examines American Sign Language as a living, visual language. Working across video, painting, and installation, Savage integrates movement, gesture, scale, and sound to explore how visual communication operates within everyday environments. His practice invites viewers to experience language not as something spoken or written, but as something embodied, spatial, and culturally present.
During the jury’s discussion, Savage’s work stood out for its originality, clarity of vision, and cultural significance. One juror noted:
“ASL is an everyday language, and the poetry of the visual language is something we should be talking about more. He’s a very interesting artist.”
Another reflected on the impact of the work’s scale and conceptual boldness:
“I like the concept of the piece — the playfulness of it, the scale of it. A lot of people will see this and question it, but also relate to it. He’s saying something I’ve never seen before. Jon’s work adds to the lexicon.”
Out of a wide-ranging pool of more than 100 submissions across all disciplines and experience levels, Savage’s work resonated deeply with the panel for its ability to make the invisible visible — expanding how we understand culture, communication, and everyday experience.
We extend our sincere gratitude to every artist who submitted work to The Art of Everyday. This competition affirmed what we believe at Vanguard Culture: culture lives in the everyday — and artists help us see it more clearly.
More to come soon!
See more of Jon Savage’s work here:
“Jon Savage’s use of sign language to embody the art of the everyday recognizes sign language as both ordinary and profound. Highlighting that communication itself is an artistic medium rooted in lived experiences. He uses the rituals of daily life—communicating and commuting—as mediums for recontextualizing visual poetry. His approach is humorous and psychedelic as the visual language becomes fluid, gestural brushstrokes on the backdrop of something as mundane as a drive on the highway. The multichannel installation takes up your entire optical field and sucks you into a rhythm as each expression, motion, and color becomes a punctuation through repetition. Savage’s ASL Abstract is a kaleidoscopic trip that pulses through familiar interstate landscapes, celebrating the gestural forms of ASL through abstracted language and landscapes. “ASL is an everyday language, and the poetry of the visual language is something we should be talking about more. He’s a very interesting artist.”
– Guusje Sanders
Curator, Mingei International Museum
“Salvage’s ASL Abstract takes us on a journey through ASL visual poetry, interwoven with iconic California imagery. As a native Californian, I settled into the familiar rhythm of the freeway drive—the passing palm trees and unfolding landscape.
I found myself visually delighted and curious about the ASL signing across the nine sequences, wondering what was being said. I felt both included and excluded. John’s video allowed me to imagine what it might be like to be deaf and separated from the hearing world, while it opened up an appreciation for the beauty, poetry, and artistry of ASL, inviting me into that world.
I’m drawn to the concept of the piece—its playfulness, its scale, its quiet confidence. Many people will question it, but they will also recognize themselves in it. He is expressing something I have rarely encountered before. John’s work expands the lexicon.“
– – Claudia James Bartlett
Director, Photo L.A.
