word works by Burst387 Victoria Chang Üla Einstein Bob Heman Maureen Kelleher R. Wayne Parsons Lori Rogers and Paul Shore

The repetitive, obsessive, compulsive involvement of visual artists with words will be the theme of Safe-T-Gallery’s summer exhibition “Onomatomania Onomatomania.” Written words have had an intimate relationship with the visual arts from their very inception, but as the modern visual environment has become increasingly saturated with words, their multiple meanings, as symbols, objects, and ideas have become an area of interest to increasing numbers of visual artists. “Onomatomania Onomatomania” presents works by 8 contemporary artists who use or include words as principal components of their art.

In alphabetical order, the artists in “Onomatomania Onomatomania follow: Burst387, is a New York based street artist has produced a compilation piece made up of photographs of every four-letter word he or she found on Broadway (Manhattan) over a three week span in 2007 - 1057 different words in all - presented in alphabetical order, of course.

Victoria Chang will show a large installation piece based on the nu shu ‘female writing’ of the Yao women of Hunan province. Ms Chang uses the spidery ancient characters to blur the distinctions between eastern aesthetics and contemporary western art traditions. Multi-disciplinary artist Üla Einstein’s installation and photography project explores the early imprint of words and phrases on our development and thoughts. Using ephemeral media (in this case tattooed text on broken eggshells) she creates works that place evocative words within a complex, fragile framework of natural and man-made objects.

Bob Heman is a poet and publisher whose involvement with words extends to the intimate word

Maureen Kelleher’s works envelope the words, phrases and stories, many true, that she has collected and experienced. Tales of the South, life in prison, yearnings and dreams, the words become so intense they seem to burst out of their wood and polyurethane casements.

R. Wayne Parsons presents a coolly intellectual, if slightly cracked, take on the understanding of words in a series of photographs of words on ladders.

Photographer Lori Rogers taps into an unusual source of visual imagery, the records of a now-defunct soft-porn production company, to produce a revelatory photo series ‘Typography for Pornography.’

Paul Shore is an artist who suffers a mild form of that supremely onomatomaniacal condition, Tourette syndrome. The work we will present is from “Blood Drawings” a series of intricate forms, seemingly biological, drawn with continuous lines of repeated words and phrases.

‘Onomatomania Onomatomania’ runs from June 4th to July 18th with an opening reception with the artists on June 4, to which all are invited.