Untitled

Artwork Description

James Castle used drawing and collage to speak his mind. Although he was best known for drawings of the Idaho landscape, Castle's creative investigations of letters, numbers, and punctuation marks are among his most intriguing.

For Castle, spoken and written language presented realms beyond reach. The artist was deaf from birth and, despite some schooling, never became fluent in alternative communications such as lipreading, signing, reading, or writing. Over many decades, Castle made unique arrangements and booklets that stabbed at deciphering texts from the world around him: communiques that prompted conversation for others, but remained, for him, impenetrable.

Although Castle's quest to unlock the secrets of the written word did not prevail, his artworks reveal, uniquely and powerfully, a decoder's approach to understanding the world and the artist's lifelong pursuit of human connection.