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Don't Read This Members Pick Staff Pick
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From birth, a child comes to understand the world through sensory experience. Only later does the written word become learned and an automatic function for making meaning. But art can teach us new ways of seeing, and artists often use the universality of words not only to create specific meaning, but for other purposes as well. In Don't Read This, a new show at The Gallery at Library Square, the conventional usage of the word is deconstructed, as artists use the word as an artistic tool. "As an artist, if I use text, I don't use it for the meaning of the word; I use it for an aesthetic purpose," says artist Justin Wheatley. "In this show, it comes down to the aesthetic use of it, and not the words themselves. We find beauty and utility." "Words from Brandon Sanderson," a large canvas by Randall Marsh, contains a massive amount of minuscule text, written in cursive in exacting, straight lines. Yet, a viewer might not even attempt to focus on the meanings of this text but rather enjoy the simplicity of flow, precision and repetition of line, and the dimension added by the minute loops, swirls and hoops of the cursive. Wheatley's contribution to the show is "Reverse" (pictured). It, too, is a large canvas, and employs large letters as structural elements, just as much as it employs a cable bridge, buildings and sky. "When you draw from literature, you don't focus on the words, you focus on the meaning as a whole," Wheatley says—and in "Reverse," he has achieved an astonishing sense of balance. (Ehren Clark)
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