Words reimagined

New exhibit at 2 Gallery combines words and images

The latest exhibit at 2 Gallery in downtown Picton looks at how words and images form the backbone of storytelling. The show features the work of Andrew McLuhan and Noelle Hamlyn and had its genesis after gallery owner Jim Turner read McLuhan’s book written matter. The book is a collection of photographs and poetry, and Turner felt it could easily translate into an art exhibit. He then commissioned Noelle Hamlyn to create a series of pieces based on the books by Marshall McLuhan, Andrew’s grandfather, as a complementary exhibit. The pages of Andrew’s book were turned into letterpress poetry and fine art photographic prints combined in single frames, while the pages of Marshall’s book were recast as images by Hamlyn in a completely new way. In another interesting family connection, the letterpress used for Andrew’s printed poetry was once owned by Turner’s father. The exhibit opened last Saturday and featured a talk by the two artists explaining how they created their artworks.

Andrew McLuhan reads a poem from his book at the opening of his art show at 2 Gallery in Picton.

Andrew said that seeing his poetry and images as an art exhibit was thrilling, but completely unexpected. “I’ve been a writer for more of my life than not, but this is the first time I’ve felt like an author. In the same way, having my work on the walls here is a real sense of accomplishment and I’m quite proud of it,” he said. He began writing poetry on a more regular basis during the pandemic, and as a prompt he would use images of everyday objects taken on his cell phone. “There’s so much in the environment that we don’t pay attention to—the way lines meet, the way objects interact. I decided to look on our property and take a picture each morning and use that as a writing prompt,” he said. “For a writer, or an artist, the most difficult thing is the blank page or the empty canvas, so it helps to have a prompt at some time, and that’s what the photos were to me.” He began posting the pairing of images and poetry on social media, and a friend suggested that he compile everything into a book. written matter was published in March of this year, and Andrew said he now realizes that a book is both an end and a beginning. “It might be the end of the author’s contribution, but it is certainly the beginning of its life for the reader, and even the continuance of its life as an art show, which was a surprise. I’m almost overcome, it’s so beautiful. It’s not something I would have imagined.”

Noelle Hamlyn is a Mississauga-based artist and costume designer. She retells stories found in everyday objects. For this show, she used the books of Marshall McLuhan and transformed them into a different story, in effect changing the medium into a new message. In some of these works, she takes the words from the pages and binds them together with silk thread to create a picture. In others, she uses razor-thin slices of the pages and covers to build a stack that forms a representation of how knowledge is accumulated. “I believe in the power of stories, that as human beings we communicate and get to know each other through stories, and those stories are not fixed points, but they move and can be rewritten and reworked,” she said. “This work is about my fascination with stories, and to use Marshall McLuhan’s work, and I hope I can do it justice, is about the quality of the paper, the font on the page and the colour. It’s about taking a book and giving it a really good shake and having all the words fall out.” This was Hamlyn’s first in-person showing since the pandemic began, and she really appreciated to opportunity to share her art. “It’s wonderful to be here, and to look at art with other people, to talk about what we are seeing and engage in conversation with more than one person. It’s been a long time since this happened.”

Andrew McLuhan is also the director of The McLuhan Institute (themcluhaninstitute.com), which aims to promote and continue the work of Marshall and his son Eric. The Institute is based in Bloomfield and holds a library of works by the elder McLuhans. The pandemic has afforded Andrew an unexpected opportunity to reach a wider audience via the Internet, and his online course on Marshall’s 1964 book Understanding Media has been well attended. The exhibition at 2 Gallery runs until November 1, and Andrew’s book written matter is available at Books & Company.