Words & Images started as a small publication, taking submissions from University students and being distributed campus wide. It has grown into taking national submissions and is being distributed in bookstores: large chains like Borders to and independent stores such as Casco Bay Books, as far south as Boston.
To celebrate the release of the new issue, the staff is hosting a release party at the Space Gallery on Congress Street. There will be readings by three guests: Anne-Marie Oomen, Christian Barter, and Lewis Turko, as well as live jazz from the Get Band and a display of submitted artwork. The party will be going from 7 to 9 p.m. on Monday April 18.
In hopes of having more commercial appeal, this year’s Words & Images has a different format than previous years. The number of different artists displayed is far fewer this time, nine instead of the 31 from last year. Of the artists in the book, three of them are featured, with eight pieces shown and criticism and/or interviews of each of the artists. “I felt there should be a strong emphasis on art,” said Victor Wyatt, publishing director for Words & Images, “The book has more to offer in terms of substance now.” While readers of this year’s issue will get a better sense of the style and personality of each featured artist, there does seem to be less artwork displayed overall.
Interestingly, the work of one artist with a multi-page spread, Tim Folland, consists of stills from his DVD, “Tools for Destroying Paintings.” The images depict Folland wearing a bald headed, golden mask and blue and orange striped calf warmers. In the stills we see Folland jumping on, rolling over, and tearing apart his paintings. One of the more interesting shots shows Folland running full speed towards a small flight of steps he’s propped against the wall beneath his painting. I can only assume that he’s planning on smashing into the painting, and thus the wall, at full speed, sacrificing his body in his quest to destroy his work. Seeing Folland go to such great lengths causes one to wonder if there isn’t an easier way to get rid of art the creator doesn’t seem to care about too much, for example: selling it.
The featured artists in the book are Richard Brown Lethem, Hilary Hanley Irons and George Daniell. Lethem’s contribution is a series of dark and chaotic paintings in which figures are often faintly rendered, leaving them hovering on the edge of the subconscious. Lethem’s “Emergency Ward” is particularly disturbing. It depicts a person with their head thrown back and mouth wide open, but it is uncertain if they’re fast asleep, screaming, or dead.
Irons’ work is a mixture of either pen and gouache or pen and watercolor. Her pictures use only a few colors and contain some wonderful color transitions. A good example of her work is “Foolish Virgins II,” which shows the outlines of animals, some of which have scenes of nuns at leisure inside them, and others with the aforementioned color transitions. The brown background looks like it could be dirt that has been scraped away (in the shape of bears and deer, incidentally enough) to reveal the mural beneath.
Daniell uses lots of bright colors and a single sentence to bring his watercolors to life. “Regrets like flames from Hell are not easily extinguishable” is my favorite. Orange and yellow fireballs rain from a clouded sky down onto a purple mountain range and blue river (depicted as a straight line), and at the bottom scrawled in cursive is the title of the painting. It seems as though Daniell starts with the title, then paints what comes into his mind, instead of creating the title after the work is completed.