Speaking Parts Text Panels

Materials and Process In his work Writing Lessons, at the center of this gallery, Dennis Evans plays with ideas about what kinds of materials can be used to create art. By taking some common art-making tools—paint brushes and jars of pigment—and using them instead as part of the building blocks for his mixed-media work, he challenges the viewer to consider how artworks are made. The works in this part of the gallery continue that dialogue, offering other ways of thinking about materials or the process behind an object’s creation. In some, an aspect of a material, such as color or texture, is the focus. Other works play with our perceptions by using unusual substances—perhaps found objects or industrial products—or working with familiar media, like bronze or paper, in a new way. Also among this group are paintings and prints that focus primarily on the process used to make them.

What Is a Painting? Ideas about what a painting should look like have shifted dramatically over the past 150 years. Like the mixed-media construction by Dennis Evans at the center of this gallery, the artworks in this group reference some of those changes. Two 19th-century paintings represent the traditional format that was popular for several hundred years: realistic and detailed, with carefully balanced compositions that create the illusion of three-dimensional space. Other works in this section reveal how that standard began to change in the mid-1800s as art movements such as impressionism, and later cubism, expressionism, and surrealism among others, experimented with color, space, technique, and subject. During the 20th century, the definition of painting expanded further to include supports other than canvas, works that focus solely on the properties of paint, and constructions that mix painting with other media such as photography, sculpture, and prints.

Texts and Symbols Visual art has its own language that includes such elements as color, shape, line, material, and texture, but artists often incorporate letters, words, texts, and a variety of other symbol systems into their works. These components can function as design elements, be integral to the understanding of a work, or alternatively, reveal meaning only to those who know how to decode them. Dennis Evans uses all these aspects in Writing Lessons, employing numbers, letters, words, and geometric shapes throughout the composition. His use of texts and symbols provides another connection to a number of artworks from the permanent collection. In the works grouped here, the symbols reference a variety of cultures and take forms ranging from geometric shapes to animals. Writing, whether real or invented, also plays an important role in a number of the artworks on view.