The Intersection of Text and Creativity
In the realm of visual art, words are often seen as the medium of writers, but they carry just as much weight for artists working with images, objects, and spaces. Text and words in art hold a unique power to evoke emotions, challenge perceptions, and transform ideas. From bold typographic designs to delicate hand-lettering, artists harness the power of language to add layers of meaning to their work. Words can act as a bridge between the visual and the conceptual, infusing art with narrative, commentary, or poetic symbolism. In this exploration, we'll dive into how text isn't just seen, but felt and interpreted, becoming a visual experience all its own—transforming writing into art, and art into writing.
Executive Administration Officer, School of Arts & Communication Design Reading School of Art
BY - Mildred
What I miss most from the seventies are girls’ weekly comics such as Bunty, Judy, Misty, and Tracy, printed on newsprint to be disposable, and featuring serialised stories starring girls of approximately the same age as the target audience. No doubt the overly-moralistic storylines would these days seem laughable at best and ill-judged at worst, but those publications were absolutely enchanting to my pre-teen self. Their general popularity declined in the decades which followed, but I was incurably hooked on comics forever – although my interest in them in the first quarter of the twenty-first century has turned towards the academic.
One of the most compelling discussions in comics scholarship is that of word/image parity, and what status each holds when placed alongside one another in a narrative that is told both visually and verbally. There have been numerous attempts to identify a ‘language of comics’ which would provide the comics reader with a taxonomy of drawn marks having a specific meaning and special significance – a dictionary of drawings, almost. Neil Cohn, a psychologist by background, has been especially busy with his experiments which set out to demonstrate that readers will always interpret certain markings in more or less the same way, but Hannah Miodrag, the author of Comics and Language, to my mind successfully challenges this premise. Miodrag is adamant that words and images belong to two entirely separate spheres. Words are part of a language system, and their meaning exists externally to themselves as components of this system. Images, however, are not so positioned, and each line is unique. The markings Cohn focuses on to support his arguments tend to be rather old-fashioned devices such as a lightbulb over the head to indicate a sudden flash of inspiration, but these markings – which are indeed part of a set which do, in context, mean something specific – exist only in a small and rather insignificant subset inside an infinite possible range of marks. It is impossible, and more importantly, undesirable, to categorise images in a way that shuts down other readings.
In Ungrammaticalities: Linguistic Literary Criticism from ‘The Battle of Maldon’ to Muriel Spark, I devote three sections to aspects of current comics scholarship. Focalisation is a central concern of literary theory, and I examine how one might identify the focaliser of a narrative made up of words and pictures in a discussion of Treat, a comic strip by Stephen Collins. I consider a possible focus for future research in an essay based on text world theory, and how this might be applied to comics: speech bubbles and panel organisation obviously sit well within this framework, but text world theory has the potential to go far beyond the obvious in helping us understand how the reader makes meaning from the words and images in comics. Finally, a long-form essay on fictional consciousness examines how a reader ascribes a mind to a character such as Iris Pink- Percy in Rachael Ball’s wonderful graphic novel, The Inflatable Woman.
Artist name George Kowzan
Social Media links @georgekowzanart instagram george kowzan Facebook
Website http://www.georgekowzan.com
George Kowzan - examples of large scale mural work in Málaga. eg "I have a dream" "Portrait of the artist: George Kowzan" Youtube
Artist name
Luminara Florescu
Social Media links https://www.instagram.com/luminara_florescu/
Website https://www.luminaraflorescu.com/
Description
REST MANIFESTO is part of my ongoing 'Rest As Protest' project developed during my DYCP funding period. The manifesto was created and installed as part of '‘The Resting Room’ performance during my Artist Residency in June 2024 at Create@#8 in Shepton Mallet, Somerset. The Manifesto is a political statement and artwork, an antidote to Capitalism and Hyper-productivity in an economic system that puts profit before people, promotes and sustains Ableism and destroys our planet.
Artist name - Carl Rowe
Social Media links https://www.instagram.com/carlroweart/
Website https://www.carlrowe.co.uk
Description
1
Things Matter
Acrylic paint on paper and brass eyelet
2023
40cm x 40cm
Essentially, Things Matter is a piece of concrete poetry. The stencilled words are arranged within a square format, and in consequence some of the words split, slowing the reading. The crude military style stencilled letter forms impose a pragmatic interpretation of the grand subjects. The wad of coloured paper sitting behind the front ‘page’ suggests obscured missives and knowledge.
I talk about ‘things’ in my work and must remind myself what a ‘thing’ is, and why it differs (if indeed it does) from an object. It always sounds a bit flimsy, like ‘nice’ or ‘interesting’. But then consider the vastness of things that populate the known universe and try to imagine those forms beyond our experience and language. In his book Cosmicomics, Italo Calvino writes the definitive text on the accretion of the universe, and the forming of all magnificent things that come into focus as the gas clouds settle.
The title Things Matter is a play on words, as it suggests Aristotle’s theory on universals. But it also carries a subtext of caring and/or warning, as things become increasingly artificial. There is a direct reference to the forming of matter, of the coalescence and accretion of planets and to the enchantment of sentience.
2
Clown
Acrylic paint on paper and brass eyelet
2023
40cm x 40cm
Clown is not so much concrete poetry, more a concrete outcry. It is an assemblage of small sheets of painted paper with the word ‘NO’ stencilled in a circular arrangement around the centre. When viewed and read, it offers an infinite chant of NO NO NO. Alternatively, it can be read the other way, thus presenting an endless mantra of ON ON ON. It is a visual pun employing a simple ‘semordnilap’, a word that is different when read backwards. The paper structure is held on the wall by a dowel which threads through a brass eyelet. The whole piece can be physically rotated by hand in either a clockwise or anticlockwise direction.
Clown is a nod to Bruce Nauman’s ‘No No New Museum’. Played through two CRT screen cube monitors, Nauman’s clown jumps up and down exclaiming “no no no no no” on the top monitor, whilst simultaneously jumping down and up on the monitor beneath. It reads like the joker in a pack of cards. I have taken Nauman’s frenetic dialogue and created a perpetual loop which plays forwards and backwards. It is like a vinyl record that can be physically rotated on a deck.
3
Ghost Matters
acrylic paint on handmade archival paper, pencil, dowel
60cm x 60cm x 8cm
2023
Ghost Matters utilises a form of Ouija board to explore what late nineteenth century chemists referred to as ‘occult chemistry’. It offers a circular menu of opposites, both in terms of materiality and proposition. English is translated into German, and vice versa, reflecting the mechanics of interpretation. Rather than necromancy, this ‘talking board’ is a tool for understanding quantum particles and sub-atomic structures.
The piece is constructed from several layers of Fabriano paper, each painted in a contrasting colour. All layers are assembled and fixed in place with a brass eyelet. The structure is able to rotate around a wooden dowel, fixed to the wall. Looped over the dowel is a length of string holding a pencil (planchette), with which answers can be indicated and notes can be made.
Artist name - Benna Gaean Maris
Social Media links https://youtube.com/@JSEsS
Website http://aaaabeegimnnnrs.net/
Description
My art practice is often linked to written words and personal aphorisms, but I'm not an Instagram subscriber, I hope this is not paramount. I do also write poems, small novels, artist's books and used the words/letters as signs.
"wasted words", 2010 - ?
Selection from the series of aphorisms (actually 80), ink on toilet paper, variable sizes.
«Philosophy is nowadays unheeded.»
"CECI N’EST PAS UNE IMAGE DE PIPE", 2013
Drawing, felt-tip pen on paper, 297 × 420 mm, ed. 3
«After René Magritte’s most famous conceptual artwork.»
"ABFALLSORTIERUNG MACHT FREI" (WASTE SORTING IS FREEDOM), 2014
Photographic manipulation, print on paper, 20 × 90 cm, ed. 3
«With no connection to the Nazi deportations, with the simple substitution in the famous slogan of the word ARBEIT (labour) with ABFALLSORTIERUNG (waste sorting, which is a form of labour) this artwork is a criticism on the business of waste recycling that exploits the masses: people are considered forced-labourers sorting waste for free, little slaves donating raw materials they paid in supermarkets, educated since childhood in doing the dirty job, yet paying in many countries a waste disposal tax, while in third world countries, at least, poor people sort waste to get paid.
Then, too many times the separated materials end up in incinerators anyway, since the process of recycling them is not convenient. The system does not care, as those raw materials come totally free anyway.»
Artist name - Laura Malacart
Social Media links @lauramalacart, @thebalconyprojectceglie, Laura Malacart linkedin, fb
Website www.lauramalacart.net
Description
These are silkscreen prints of individual names/nouns and their definitions. Each one is a future street name for a town yet to be built. In Collaborative Toponymy I co-created over 300 street names for a new garden village in Essex based on the histories, ecologies and community values of the site that has been designated for redevelopment. Naming is a very powerful act and street naming is a privilege that is generally not available to the general public.
Artist name Nia Addicott
Social Media links nia.addicott_
Description
This installation titled ‘Famished’ explores mansplaining in an unconventional tea party setup. Challenging the traditional roles of women and their required etiquette with the way the table is arranged- taking inspiration from the great Judy Chicago. The oil painting self-portrait represents a hunger for change with the spoon and the written words in the alphabet spaghetti- ‘no I don’t need you to explain’. Although the spaghetti may seem bizarre, it aims to emphasise the childish nature of mansplaining and how patronising it can be.
Each place setting has repurposed plates from charity shops and ceramic spaghetti phrases that encourage an interactive approach with the viewer. Sitting on every plate is the ceramic spaghetti, painted realistically with a fired glaze to give it that gloopy, edible texture.
To add a wider viewpoint to this project, the written words in the ceramic alphabet spaghetti and the ‘misogyny prevention manifesto’ include shared experiences of misogyny from local women from a questionnaire. The ‘Misogyny Prevention Manifesto’ takes inspiration from classical artist’s manifestos and lists clear declarations and demands with a hint of humour but also very seriously declaring the need for change.
Overall the aim of this installation is to provoke, to question and disrupt the somewhat accepted nature of misogyny. Although big changes have been made in recent years the fundamentals of society remain engrained and require absolute destruction.
