THE WORDS DON’T FIT THE PICTURE
by Ron Terada

Vancouver Central Library—South Plaza
350 West Georgia Street

THE WORDS DON’T FIT THE PICTURE is a text-based work made in response to the context, building and public surrounds of Vancouver’s Central Library. The work takes the form of a large freestanding sign that sits in front of the library, just off the southern entrance of the building by heavy pedestrian traffic. Using a typography that is at once familiar and accessible, the artwork is a reference to Vancouver’s neon past, when the famous BOW-MAC sign and legendary Woodward’s W reigned over the city’s skyline.

“The sign takes its cues from an era of signage when signs were seen as celebratory, grand and iconic – in effect, as landmarks in their own right, a kind of symbolic architecture… Taken within the context of a public library, the work touches upon – in a very poetic way – the use of words and language as boundless and imaginative, as a catalyst for a multiplicity of meanings.”

-- Ron Terada

Artist Biography

Vancouver artist Ron Terada’s photography, lightboxes, video projects and neon works draw on content from everyday sources. Through his juxtaposition of text and images, he references popular culture and art history traditions, often taking texts from such items as outdoor signage to create other layers of meaning.

Terada was a recipient of the 2006 Canada Council of the Arts’ Victor Martyn Lynch-Staunton Award and the 2004 VIVA Award from the Jack and Doris Shadbolt Foundation. His work has been exhibited in solo and group shows in Canada, the United States and Europe. Recent solo exhibitions include Voight- Kampff, Catriona Jeffries Gallery, Vancouver (2008); Stay Away From Lonely Places, Ikon Gallery, Birmingham (2006); and You Have Left the American Sector (2005), Art Gallery of Windsor (2005). Terada’s work for the Vancouver Central Library is his public art commission for the City of Vancouver.