SHEDS LIGHT ON HEBREW TEXTS AS IMAGE AND MESSAGE
Illuminations will begin with
a Guided Tour of the show by the artist at 5 p.m. Saturday,
June 3, 2006
A free Opening Reception will follow 7:00 p.m.–10:00
p.m. at Signs of Life Gallery.
Gallery Information
Signs of Life Gallery is located at 722 Massachusetts
Street in Lawrence, Kansas, and is open 10:00 a.m.–10:00
p.m. Monday through Saturday.
LAWRENCE, KS–An upcoming exhibition at
Signs of Life Gallery will explore how language can be visual
as well as literal in artwork. Illuminations: The
Art of Sandra Bowden, on view June 3–July
15 at the gallery, includes more than 50 works by Bowden,
an artist based in Chatham, Mass.
“Scribes and illuminators have preserved the written word
with devotion, love, and care,” Bowden writes. “Over
the centuries, many different approaches were devised to record
and embellish important text. Many manuscripts were elaborately
decorated with painted elements, gilded surfaces, and great imagination.
Their beauty inspired my Illuminations.”
Drawing on texts from the Bible, Bowden takes important passages
and gives them a new, tactile dimension by embedding Hebrew texts
in works that often feature a collage of mixed media or acrylic
and gold leaf. Sometimes the words appear etched on the surface
of paintings, or as solid blocks of lines, with no space in between
the letters, creating an almost rhythmic pattern. Bowden also
makes works that reflect on the solemnity and beauty of sacred
texts by incorporating rice paper, gold leaf, and other precious
and beautiful materials.
“By letting her work be an exploration of the interfaces
between visual and verbal, images and texts, print-collages and
book-objects, Bowden teases out the wonderful ‘mental tactility’ by
which language-cum-art operates,” Wayne Roosa writes in The
Art of Sandra Bowden. “In short, what she explores
is the arena of ‘translation.’ ... translating from
one langue (words) to a different langue (images).” |
