The Texas Book Festival is thrilled to reveal the 2022 Festival poster, Adrift No. 3. The artwork for the poster is by photographer Minta Maria, who was raised in San Antonio and now lives and works in Austin.
The art for this year’s poster, titled Adrift No. 3, is part of the Adrift photographic series by Minta Maria that captures compelling headlines, images, and journalistic storytelling, focusing on one day at a time. Minta Maria’s artist statement for the selected piece: “March 19, 2020: The African American Art Shaping the 21st Century,” notes the date of the featured newspaper in the photograph and the title of a selection of articles and photographs that featured important African American artists, writers, and poets.
Minta Maria is an artist and freelance photographer. She received her BA in Journalism from the University of Texas and MFA in Photography & Related Media from the School of Visual Arts. Over the past ten years of developing her art, Minta has had a variety of exhibitions and worked to build upon the themes of memory, tradition, and the fragility of information.
“I love this image for this year’s poster because of two reasons. It’s an image created from text and writing–and it’s graphic as all get out,” said DJ Stout, of design firm Pentagram. “This may be the first time we’ve designed the festival poster around a dynamic image featuring journalism.”
Every year, the Texas Book Festival chooses an artist and work that reflects the spirit of the Texas Book Festival, including imagination, creativity, and community. The artist should have a strong Texas affiliation, and the work should capture the diversity of Texas culture. The incredibly talented team at Pentagram once again designed the Festival poster.
“Selecting a Texas artist to celebrate in our Festival materials is one of my favorite traditions,” says Executive Director Lois Kim. “Visual arts and literary arts go hand in hand in making our lives richer as we get to enjoy the originality and ingenuity of artists making sense of the world through their crafts.
Posters and T-shirts featuring the Adrift No. 3 art will be available for purchase at the Texas Book Festival on November 5-6, 2022 in Downtown Austin.