Word Art aims to create a "greater synergy" between language and visual art© Courtesy Word Art Collective
Aiming to fuse language and visual art in contemporary ways, the Word Art Collective is a group of Londoners under 30 backed by the British Council’s Youth in Action programme.
Of a batch of works newly-commissioned for this show, Hope Something Happens, Hope Nothing Happens, by Won Woo Lee, is a sculptural gate for which the Royal College of Art graduate has taken inspiration from Auguste Rodin’s Gates of Hell, along with their dark suggestions about how a lifetime’s expectations can serve to imprison the mind.
Top secret street artist Mobstr – known for guerrilla typography taking the micky out of public advertising – has also been lured in from the streets for the first time. And photographer Kofi Allen has made a piece, Watching the Watchers, capturing the Notting Hill Carnival and accompanied by a flash fiction story by author Courttia Newland.
“We’ve brought together a talented group of international artists who use words and images in unison,” says Priya Khanchandani, the Director of a Collective which also heralds an illustration by graphic novelist Nick Hayes using mythological narratives and the ancient Pictish alphabet.
“They show that both modes of expression have the common power to covey what is fundamental about us – to tell stories, give voice to new ideas, prick our imagination and move us.”
- Hoxton Arches, Cramer Street, London. Open Wednesday-Sunday 11am-6pm (9pm Thursday). Admission free. Follow the Collective on Twitter @Word_Art_Coll or use the hashtag #wordart.
More pictures:
© Courtesy Word Art Collective
© Courtesy Word Art Collective
© Courtesy Word Art Collective
© Courtesy Word Art Collective
© Courtesy Word Art Collective
