by Anita George @ PenOnParchment Gallery, Warragul
Integrating an Italian workshop with a residency in Southern France, this exhibition explores the dialogue between contemporary calligraphy and regional atmosphere, translating the specific Mediterranean light through expressive, gestural inkwork.
This is where I am at the moment, using any tool to express the fluidity of my thoughts whilst still retaining the memories and practices of my calligraphic training.
Taking my own path between traditional techniques and free expression.
I work intuitively as mark, letter, line or point follow each other across my canvas. I let my experience with the different mediums dictate the next phase, but always with calligraphy at the core.
These artworks are not in response to the Pandemic, but to the quiet time it produced, the calm of life’s demands slowing. I looked at past work and created new works. I pushed beyond my normal ‘stopping point’ to discover more, to see more. I still enjoy the quick mark, but this was about slowing down and the layering of moments.
Read it and weep embodies emotion. Words create a reaction in us; love, dispair, hope-lessness, joy, anger, questions and answers
There once were marks that became symbols that became words , which are now moving back to symbols, marks. Is that progress?
This body of work moves away from paper and traditional pens, back to marks, wood, skins, fibre.
Using my calligraphic experience I am drawing from the past, thrusting into the present. Can, brushes, feathers, paint on MDF, on silk, or cottons will be melded together by letters.
Simplicity of mark, overlaid with tradition and my love of all letterforms, makes this a very unusual experience
This exhibition, INK TALKS, has examples of these early writing implements and poses the question: is hand writing relevant today or is it now an art-form?
Lettering is my passion, and a workshop in Venice my love of Ink, Pen and Brush combined.
The infinite possibilities of these three. The smell of the ink as it hits the paper, the gleam as it is spread with the brush, the sound of the pen dancing with the ink across the white paper.