Artistic Signs Of Intelligent Life

Maryse Maynard Exhibit – Signs Of Intelligent Life

The City Of Kitchener Rotunda Gallery is featuring an exhibit called Signs Of Intelligent Life.  Of course with the words signs in the name it peaked some interest.  The exhibit was artistic mix medium show.  It displayed printing press racks as shadow boxes influenced by famous sayings and quotes.  It was an artistic sign showing a visual of the how the words influenced artist Maryse Maynard.  You can read more about the artist and the ideas behind Signs Of Intelligent Life on her artist statement post.

Artistic Ideas

The words in these art pieces were displayed using scrabble pieces, clay tiles and what looked like routered wood letters.  Below are two pieces that show how the phrases were created with Scrabble letter tiles.

MARILYN - 'Well behaved women rarely make history'

THE TREASURE BOX - 'Finders, keepers, losers, weepers'

Out Of The Box Thinking

The use of printing press tile boxes reminded me of the TYPEFACE film we presented last year at the Princess Cinema and how the skill of Wood Type printing could have been lost if it had not been for a Museum trying to keep it alive.  Through the movie you learned how new artists are choosing to use wood type printing in new pieces, and in the case of this exhibit the item that holds the wood type letters was re-purposed into an artistic piece.

This brought me back to The Sign Depot workspace where Peter has an antique typeface holder displayed in his office.  Every time I look there is an addition of items no longer available nowadays.  Separately they look like items from days gone by, but together they look like a collection. It is almost as if these items are being re-purposed to make a brand new art piece right here in our workspace. 

Looking at it now I wonder what phrase Maryse Maynard would choose for this display?  Many come to mind for me, but I think the one that stands out is

Everything Old Is New Again