“O,” encaustic painting with mixed reclaimed paper on baltic birch panel, by Barbara WF Miner is included in “Transcending Text.”
Three of the four artists with works in the exhibit are UT faculty members:
• Barbara WF Miner, associate professor and associate chair of the Art Department. Her encaustic paintings use text as abstract symbols: letters, characters, cuneiforms and hieroglyphs. “When a letter or a pictograph is separated from the rest of the communication system, it becomes unintelligible and is cast adrift from concrete meaning like a discarded implement,” she said.
• Barry Whittaker, assistant professor of art. His work explores the challenge in communication, especially when there is technology involved. “It’s the equivalent of deconstructing all one’s thoughts in a food processor and handing the pieces to one person who will deliver them to another person, who will reassemble them for the intended recipient of the message,” he said. “The hope is that he will get the idea of what is being said, but it is likely that important parts will be missing.”
• Holly Hey, associate professor of film. Her “MOM MOM” is a moving image loop that simultaneously contemplates and confronts social, cultural and familial notions of the word “mother.”
A closing reception for the exhibition will be held Friday, Aug. 30, from 5 to 7 p.m. in the gallery.
To make an appointment to see the free exhibit, contact Miner at barbara.miner@utoledo.edu or 419.530.8315.
“Empire #10,” archival digital print, by Barry Whittaker also is featured in the exhibit.
