Marginalia

Dogeared thoughts and the authors that Inspire. Words that escape the page, imbed in artist’s souls, and manifest in masterworks.

Armstrong Gallery presents “Marginalia”,  an exhibition that examines the profound kinship between literary and artistic creation, revealing how the act of reading often subconsciously becomes raw materials within contemporary visual practices. As John Berger observed, "the relation between what we see and what we know is never settled"—a condition that finds its most fertile expression in the artist's encounter with literature. The term marginalia—those spontaneous marks, annotations, and ephemeral thoughts inscribed

alongside printed text—serves as both metaphor and methodology for understanding how literature permeates, informs and transforms an artist's making.

The works presented here emerge from what we might call the "third space" of reading: neither purely textual nor entirely visual, but occupying the liminal territory where comprehension itself becomes creation: each participating artist presents their work alongside three literary volumes that have fundamentally shaped their aesthetic consciousness—not as source material for illustration, but as catalysts for formal innovation and inquiry. These books are in some way part of their conceptual palette.

A visual artist’s literary companions function as tangible forms of reflection that reveal their significance through marginalia, bookmarks, and worn bindings. This evidence of having been read, reread, and lived with speaks to a deep intellectual and emotional relationship. They represent what Susan Sontag termed "the aesthetics of encounter"—those transformative moments when literary experience transcends passive consumption to become active collaboration between reader and text. 

The exhibition reveals literature's capacity to operate as both sanctuary and laboratory for the visual artist. We are only emphasizing the point that literature serves as a reflective space, made for readers to interpret, each in their own unique form. Rarely do we find any sort of art that exists without the inadvertent inspiration of others. Specifically, visual artists and writers have worked for centuries to exchange developing ideas in each respected medium: narrative structure informs compositional logic, metaphorical language generates new chromatic relationships, and the rhythmic cadences of prose find expression through gestural mark-making.

Central to this investigation is our understanding that artistic influence functions not through direct translation but through productive misreading and creative betrayal. These works demonstrate how literature's most profound impact often occurs indirectly—It’s not the literal scenes or characters that resonate most, but the mood, tone, or underlying message that lingers. It’s the thematic essence, or what the book evokes rather than what it describes, that becomes the catalyst for visual creation. The resulting art may echo the structure or rhythm of the prose rather than its narrative, and what exactly is being reflected remains open to interpretation. In this way, the artworks are neither objective analyses nor entirely separate creations--they exist in dialogue with the text, shaped by personal perception. Each literary encounter carries its own unreproducible presence that, when filtered through the mind of an artist and reimagined visually, generates a sense of newness: perhaps the closest one can come to true novelty.

In addition, the participatory element of this Marginalia invites visitors to contribute their own literary influences and thoughts on the show, creating a collective mapping of influence that extends beyond the gallery walls and is written in a physically created ‘margin’ of the exhibition. This democratic gesture acknowledges that the relationship between reading and making transcends professional artistic practice, touching all who engage seriously with both literature and visual culture.

Marginalia ultimately argues for literature's enduring relevance within contemporary art discourse—not as decorative supplement or nostalgic retreat, but as a living archive of human consciousness and continuous wellspring for visual innovation. In John Berger's words, "Every image embodies a way of seeing," and here we discover how engaging with literature naturally expands the possibilities of artistic vision by providing a conceptual medium to explore and re-imagine. 

PARTICIPATING ARTISTS