Written language, and the layered meanings we gather from signs, symbols, and texts, are deeply tied into culture, history, and our place in the world. At UC Santa Barbara, these connections are the foundation of Public Texts: A California Visual Language, a collection of works by California artists exploring the boundary between image and the written word.
Associate Professor of Print and Publication Alex Lukas — who specializes in researching and teaching the art of printmaking, zines, sign-painting, and graphic design — curated the show as a portrayal of California’s impact on art through these subcultures and a study of the evolution of text as tool for both communication and personal expression.
“I think a lot about how it feels like we’re reading more than ever, just because we’re always on our phones, scrolling,” Lukas said. “There’s this huge volume of text we encounter. But for me, there’s this tactility of something that is detached from the phone, that you spend time with on your couch. There’s all these different ways that we have to read, and we have historically relied on that activity.”