Date of Graduation
5-2026
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Fine Arts in Art (MFA)
Degree Level
Graduate
Department
Art
Advisor/Mentor
Lyon, Calista
Committee Member
Shojae-Chaghorvand, Anoushe
Second Committee Member
Perez, George
Third Committee Member
Gepfer, Henry
Fourth Committee Member
Radan, Nikola
Keywords
Signs; All Sign Point; Modular Exhibition; Windgate Studio
Abstract
All Signs Point is a tactile experiment in thought. Large, colorful banners render individual words or short phrases. Predominately speaking, they struggle to coalesce into full sentences. Most are verbs that cosplay as nouns, directives for action toward an ambiguous end. Described by some viewers as invoking “the feeling of standing on a precipice,” their pop-art sensibility mimes a declaration, but if anyone takes the jump remains unclear. Will you LOOK, or LOOK WEST, or LOOK DESPITE MY MISTAKE, depending on how the works are arranged? Sutured with electrical wire embedded in the sheet before it’s dried, each work takes on an implied posture or choreography. REMARKABLY dangles longer than the rest; N, S, E, and W stand in for the cardinal directions, extending heavy arms out in spectral arrays that slump under their own weight. Surrogates for a body, these human-sized paper banners infiltrate the complexity of one’s layered, mutable thinking. One thought is subsumed by another, which is transformed by a pivot, a reversal, a new introduction of text. Meaning is rendered ambiguous, or at least in constant renegotiation. Signs are supposed to tell us where we are, and perhaps—if we’re lucky—where we’re going. Songs on the other hand, meander. Perhaps these signs are acting more like songs: beating around the bush. This exhibition let them be—or do—both (sign and song). Modular, responsive, and ever-changing, All Signs Point took on a life of its own over the course of the show’s run, rearranging itself nightly into new formations, absent any clear performer. Then, on the night of January 22, 2026, anticipating a blizzard, some one hundred and fifty audience members gathered to witness twelve performers stage the signs in space. They ended the night installed on a large stairway on the street-level floor of the Windgate Studio + Design Center, where they remained visible from the road for the remainder of the exhibition. From the seat of one’s car or trudging through snow, they could be seen like beacons, bright clusters of language calling out into the night, directing us who knows where.
Citation
Caffrey, S. (2026). All Signs Point. Graduate Theses and Dissertations Retrieved from https://scholarworks.uark.edu/etd/6264
