Here’s why Little Rock artist Laura Raborn creates visual art that includes text: “Language in the layers of paint confounds, hints, supports or reframes our understanding of what we are seeing.”
Examples of her work in this realm can be seen in “Laura Raborn: Words Create Reality,” an exhibition in UALR’s Focus Gallery.
As a visual artist, she says, “I constantly experiment with methods and materials, always aiming to spark a connection, a way to relate to each other through recognizable imagery, and engagement with the viewer. Integrating language into the paintings allows me to enrich — or alter — the way we perceive the images, and therefore, the way we perceive each other.”
There are 30 works on paper in the exhibit. “I use a variety of painting and drawing materials — oil paint, acrylic paint, charcoal, colored pencils, stencils, and all kinds of fun mark making tools — to find the material that best communicates the desired message. Many are small pieces that are displayed in groupings. In some pieces, such as the figurative work, the presence of text is minimal and subtle. In others, the text is bold and is the sole subject.
“Regardless of legibility, words add a sense of discovery, and prompt the viewer to reconsider initial thoughts, such as assumptions, when viewing the paintings.
“Engagement with the mind through language exemplifies how visual art can be a vehicle for presenting varied perspectives.”
She has been developing text-based paintings off and on for about seven or eight years. “I started adding language to my paintings during the 2016 presidential campaign as a way of analyzing political language and changes in our collective values,” she says. “I was paying close attention to political language and thinking about how words are used to manipulate and shape our beliefs and culture.
“While some of the work exhibited and sold, much of it was angry or bewildered, which is not a place I wanted to stay in my art making. The last three years I have concentrated on how to communicate concerns and observations using the figure and language in an inviting way. My aim now is to create compositions that allow the viewer to fill in some missing information or be drawn in to discover something surprising.
“The work can be both political and visually pleasing, like a Trojan horse delivering a surprise message.”
Raborn, who has lived in Little Rock most of her life, found her calling early. “As a child, if I wasn’t outside playing, I was reading or drawing. After taking art classes with Cindy Feltus and her sister Laurie Hickman and then with B.J. Moses at the Arkansas Arts Center [now the Arkansas Museum of Fine Art]. “Those women were some of the most fun and funny adults I’d ever met, so I knew there must be something pretty great about being an artist.”
Because of her love of language and belief in the power of words, she majored in English at Rollins College in Winter Park, Fla., and minored in studio art. “Now, as a practicing artist for the past 25 years, it is no wonder words have made their way into my artwork.”
“Laura Raborn: Words Create Reality” opened Thursday and continues through Jan. 12 at UALR’s School of Art and Design, 5617 W. 28th St., Little Rock. Hours are 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Friday, 10 a.m.-1 p.m. Saturday, and 2-5 p.m. Sunday. Admission is free. For more information and to see holiday gallery hours, visit ualr.edu/art/galleries.
