Thynges Witnessed
Thynges Witnessed
2016-2021
In Old English, the word thynge does not only designate a material object, but can also denote a narrative not fully known...”
- Robert McFarlane
This project started out of a desire to bring text and image together as a unified work of visual art. When installed for exhibition, these image-text works are presented as diptychs, with the image block and text block printed on a single sheet at 17”x 46.” Viewed at a distance, the text is unreadable and serves as a visual counterpart to the photograph it shares the page with. And that is by design. My hope is that these pieces work first as successful visual objects, diptychs that are formally and aesthetically engaging, inviting closer inspection.
Upon closer scrutiny, if a viewer chooses, there is a second layer of experience and meaning available via the text. Each artwork contains a micro fiction, a short-short story in which text and image interact in unexpected and surprising ways. The many variations of gradation seen in the text blocks are meant not only to work formally with the partnered photograph, but also with the content of the text itself, taking the viewer/reader on a journey that is simultaneously visual and literary.
In Winter Count, acclaimed author Barry Lopez says that certain stories are “a cloak to cut the wind when it blows hard enough to crack your soul.” That’s my aim here: telling stories that might help—stories that might be that cloak.