Art in Action

The immediate response to 'humanity is an error' was genuine but fierce. The easing of lockdown and the evident sense of entitlement that huge numbers of our society have are a far cry form the lockdown community pulling together previously. We have witnessed news stories of mass gatherings on beaches, drunken brawls, the mass littering of our outdoor spaces. The level of disrespect for land and community and the behaviour towards each other has been so utterly disgraceful. I am however, too angry to embrace this into work. I dont wish to occupy that headspace. Some make work to process those emotions or to help motivate change but I do not.

So to that end, I distance myself, physically and metaphorically. I am going to instead zoom into the text itself. The fabric of the typography, the marks on the page, the interpretation of the language itself. 

Zooming in, cutting into sections, editing, obscuring it. Highlighting words and phrases that seem to stand out.                                                                                                            

 

I like the mixture of hand drawn and typed marks and the way the text and page reveal textural qualities, edges blending. There are similarities to be drawn also from the patterns of the ringed words to Anni Albers woven pictures also. 

Anni Albers, Intersecting 1962. Image from Tate 

Refocussing on the text in this way is helping me to process the meaning behind the words more easily, picking it apart one word at a time. Its important for me to understand the meaning of it as a whole even so that I can think about a response.