Libby Wadsworth at Slightly Cafe

An Alphabet – Letterpress, Drawings, Paintings by Libby Wadsworth

June 30th – July 31st, 2018
Opening reception, Saturday June 30th
Slightly Cafe
545 East 8th Ave, Eugene, OR

Letters can be seen as discrete objects in space, and they can function as vehicles transparently delivering messages. We utilize letters to form words all the time, yet rarely do we see these letters as visual and material aesthetic objects. My artwork combines the visual and the verbal to explore the mutability, playfulness and power of these language systems. I am interested in the back and forth between word and image, seeing and reading, the ephemeral and the concrete– the confluence of message and image refusing the notion that these categories are fixed and mutually exclusive.

For this exhibition at Slightly Coffee Roasters, I have created letterpress prints, drawings and paintings structured around the sequence of the alphabet. Each piece can be seen as a kind of visual and verbal portrait of a word. The letters are arranged unconventionally on the page and suggest multiple ways of combining the letters to form words. Together, they can be read as a collective, verbal-visual poem in which each piece functions individually, but also interacts with and activates adjacent pieces to form a growing network of associations and meanings.

Learn more about Libby Wadsworth: libbywadsworth.com