"Upon entry, Kent's "IF" (1965) lures the eye upward. The serigraph-a silkscreen print in fine art parlance-hangs high on the wall with a subtle vulnerability. Two orange letters hover toward the composition's top edge, as if pushing to transcend the picture plane. A feeling of possibility emerges through the conjunction and its visual form."
"Morris' sculptures feel a little vulnerable, too. She worked in cement and metals, and pieces like "Centaur's Laugh" resemble scar tissue stretched over bony armatures. Her forms read as letter-like-"Morris does not write so much as extend the act of writing into air," the exhibition statement suggests."
"Bleached, knotted, inked, and slashed, Kennedy's 2017 textile works drape from dark nails, overlapping to cover an entire wall. The linen hangings are visual palimpsests, telling layered stories of artistic process. They also provide the show's conceptual scaffolding, holding Kent's direct prayers and Morris' metal gestures in a soft, colorful balance."
Reed College's Cooley Gallery presents IF, an exhibition examining how artists translate language into spatial form. Sister Corita Kent's serigraphs use typography and color to create visual poetry, with her work IF featuring orange letters that seem to transcend the picture plane. Hilda Morris, a Northwest School sculptor, extends writing into three-dimensional space through cement and metal forms resembling letter-like gestures frozen in air. Kristan Kennedy's textile works serve as visual palimpsests, layered with bleaching, knotting, inking, and slashing to create records of artistic process. Together, these three artists demonstrate how writing and language can be reimagined as sculptural, visual, and tactile experiences.
Read at Portland Mercury
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