TRANSLATOR 2015
With the shapes found within letterforms and between lines of text, the constructions in the Translator series explore a language that encodes the non-verbal. Just as any foreign alphabet reads as a code to a non-speaker, these shapes read as a mysterious cipher – the negative spaces and silences within our own language, a translation of imagination.
The shapes used in this work are made from negative spaces inside letters (called “counters” – like the pyramid shape inside an A) and printed on tulle netting on an etching press. The silver forms were salvaged from a large text-based installation of silver mylar vinyl.
For the translator of prose or poetry, language is equal parts meaning and music. I’m investigating a visual parallel that says: the impulse translated by the artist is equal parts physical attributes and transformative affect.
Click here for Translator exhibition catalog, with title quotes from Jorge Luis Borges, Anne Carson, Hayim Bialik, Louise Penny, and John Green.