The merging of text and image may strike the viewer as one of the hallmarks of post modernism, and yet decades ago, Picasso, through his invention of collage, incorporated actual sheets of old newspaper replete with headlines and news articles. Many others followed suit, with fragments of text from cigarette and wine labels, train tickets, deriving there from the titles of the works. Some (Micro, Motherwell) inscribed the titles on canvas with dripping calligraphy. Wilhem de Kooning, the great abstract Expressionist, created vibrant black and white abstractions based on certain letters of the alphabet.
In Lynyrd Arwyn V. Para's work, the inverted title reads Love Faith + Hope. Bannered across the canvas, the title transformed into the most distinctive element in the painting, with its dominant position across the forehead of the singular figure in the painting, which image is replicated in various positions: Inverted, sideways, emerging in several ghostly guises. The image is sheerly iconic: of innocence, of faith, devotion and piety. Her hands are clasped in hopeful prayer, one could refer to the image as the figure, so stylized is the distended visage of the girl, her bulbous head contrasting againts the wraith-like body.
