This painting was created as part of a series Humphries’ began in 2014 and is the museum’s most recent
addition. Humpries’ work adds depth to the collection’s holdings of abstraction by established Louisiana
women artists, and expands its research on how artists blend text and image. Jacqueline Humphries’ bright
yellow painting brings a physical materiality to digital ASCII text. Characters spelling the emoticon :-// are
layered using stencils and brushwork to create a textured rippling pattern across the painting’s streaked
surface. In this work, the artist abstractly represents a space that is akin to screen-based experiences in flux.
In use since the early 1980s, emoticons add clarity to a statement when body language or tone-of-voice cues
are not available to a reader. For example, the emoticon :-/ is associated with confusion, frustration, or
skepticism. The additional / at the end of Humphries’ :-// reveals excitement or intense feeling

This object was included in the following exhibitions:

• Legacy Traces , 1/18/2024 - 6/22/2024

This object is a member of the following portfolios: