Word and Image: Works of Change and Exchange
The exhibit can be viewed online (below) or in-person:
Saturday afternoons, 12 – 5 PM — paced, small groups, no appointment necessary
OR make an appointment for Mon – Fri at info@jazzgallerycenterforarts.org
Please, review our COVID Policy before visiting, precautions in effect for all visitors.
EXHIBITION
March 4th, 2023 – April 15th, 2023
WORD AND IMAGE
Works of Change and Exchange
Jazz Gallery Center for the Arts presents the work of a group of artists who work and collaborate with writing and visual art in a show entitled "Word and Image".
"Language is a powerful tool. And no one understands that better than artists who thoughtfully utilize text to make a statement and draw out emotion."
– Jessica Stewart.
By using letters and words in their visual expression, these 10 artists present works that invite a deeper exchange between artist and viewer.
Works by
Jack Alves
Bill Barrette
N. Adam Beadel
Renee Luna Bebeau
Jeff Cartier
Bob Danner
Thomas Gaudynski
Nina Ghanbarzadeh
Chrystal Gillon
Josie Osborne
WORD & IMAGE
Spoken word - Image - Written word
Speculation about the progression of language from sounds to the creation of images to the written word is well documented. Lithic age bone flutes found in western France attest to the creation of music, which indicates a flowering branch of speech. As art began, on the rocks of caves or calderas, the idea of capturing visions crystalized into symbols that evolved into written codexes.
Inherent in the attempt to capture experience in image or word is transformation - something is exchanged and something changes.
All of the pieces presented here reflect this challenge. Channels of association are exchanged and change in translation. Meanings are transformed as they mix with another’s perspective and experience to create a new idea or viewpoint. This is the power of words and images.
J Cartier
Moving Trees in Their Youth
Ekphrastic poem
NFS
Bill Barrette
Anonymous Child #28
Two perspective photograph:
Photographs, lenses, plexiglass, metal, wood.
17 x 11 inches
NFS
J Cartier
Cast South
Ekphrastic poem
NFS
Joseph Légaré
The Fire in St. Jean Quarter, Seen Looking Westward
Oil on canvas
59-1/2 x 86-3/4 inches
1848
J Cartier
Fire Blood Cast South
Ekphrasis: Anonymous Child #28
NFS
J Cartier
Crossing Over at Atlantic Station
Ekphrastic poem
NFS
William Blake
Albion Rose
1793
Public Domain
J Cartier
Albion Quartered
Ekphrasis
NFS
J Cartier
Edo Beauties of the Floating World
Ekphrastic poem
NFS
Thomas Gaudynski
After Michael Palmer’s,
“On the Sustaining of Culture in Dark Times”
Ink and watercolor
NFS
Nina Ghanbarzadeh
Wherever I am let me be the sky is mine
Acrylic ink, pastel, thread on paper
A tribute to Sohrab Sepehri
31 x 21-1/2 inches
$300
Chrystal Gillon
Detail: Pick Up Your Feet
1/20 from Mama Said series
Originals NFS
3D Facsimiles: $250 / piece
Chrystal Gillon
The Old Woman and the Shoe
Mixed media
36 x 15 inches
NFS
Chrystal Gillon
Detail: The Old Woman and the Shoe
Mixed media
36 x 15 inches
NFS
Josie Osborne
Small World
Mixed media
14 x 10 x 3 inches
NFS
Detail:
Small World
A Slice of Mica
An attempt to understand ekphrastic writing
Some of the pieces presented in this exhibit are linked to one another. Some of these linked responses are referred to as ekphrasis. Ekphrasis is considered generally to be a rhetorical form of writing in which one medium of art tries to relate to another medium by defining, describing or depicting its essence and form, and in doing so, relate more directly to the audience. The process and product of ekphrastic response is inherently polemic and presumptuous. Rarely is it impartial. More often than not it is inaccurate and single minded. It is a visceral and deeply personal expression that on occasion has little to do with the art or the artist and everything to do with the one creating the ekphrasis. Yet it confirms the almost alchemical process of art and its strange effect on the human psyche. Art yearns to connect, even on its own as an object.
Ekphrastics are also expressions of love. One who creates such responses must risk vulnerability - risk exposing human frailty for the benefit of connecting to another. Embedded in the imagery of visual art and poetry are layers of meaning and association. In most cases, these foundational ideas are known only to the artist - lurking there perhaps to be revealed to the attentive viewer - or, in lucky cases, to one who is able to know the artist and see the ideas as direct manifestations of experience and thus bond to form some new, more durable, sensibility. This process borders on the miraculous. In a way, creating an ekphrasis as a response to a stirring piece of art is akin to peeling a small slice of mica off its parent body - it is made of the same material but is more transparent and arguably diminishes the original.
Walt Whitman encouraged the affirming self and in the ekphrastic process a viewer of art is able to take a small slice of a larger personal expression and keep it as a tangible souvenir - a reminder of how a particular piece of art fundamentally changed something inside of them - to affirm their humanity. Yet, if done without consent or sensitivity, it is theft.