Symbols surround us everywhere, from the heart emoji we send in texts to the complex iconography in renaissance paintings. They're the visual shorthand that lets artists pack entire stories, emotions, ...

It is easy to minimize the importance of symbols in culture. Art tends to focus on existential symbolism, leap-frogging over the ways in which we interpret symbols constantly, in the form of letters, ...

When Shane Smithers was adding traditional symbols to his mural, commuters passing by asked him, "What are you doing?!" The Aboriginal artist says it's because he wasn't painting dots or concentric ...