Text can add recognizable context to visual art. When it doesn’t, it can beguile. Words may both pose a question and speak the answer, some in a shout, others in a whisper, becoming almost audible as you look at them.

Artists from the Kansas City area and across the country incorporate text – typographical or handwritten, narrative or esoteric – in a selection of absorbing contemporary works comprising the exhibition In Other Words. Personal statements, bold phrases, thought fragments, wordplay, concrete poetry, and typographic explorations are presented through paintings, drawings, prints, ceramics, textiles, and photography.

The featured artists all share an impulse to use text in as a primary visual component to convey a message.