CALLIGRAPHY AND CARTOGRAPHY – Calligraphy and Cartography dissects the lines that denote roads and pathways on roadmaps to reassemble them as meticulously constructed cartographic ‘scribbles’. The series focuses on the calligraphic ‘flourish’. In calligraphic ­marking a point where literal and functional text lapses into the emotive and associative qualities of mark and line-making. It is a return to the scribble facilitated by written language itself.

In Islamic, Japanese and Western calligraphic traditions, the particularities of the brush or pen strokes (thin up-stroke, thick down-stroke), and the swerves of the line, serve to make the ‘hand’ and thus the ‘presence’ of the calligrapher present. By carefully selecting the thickness and quality of the map’s line, now severed from its original map and function, these fragments are reassembled to construct a ‘drawn map’ that negates the objective, functionality of the cartographer’s line in favour of the calligrapher’s hand.

Flourish II, 2015
Cut and reconstructed map fragments on cotton paper
55 x 55cm

Flourish II, 2015
Cut and reconstructed map fragments on cotton paper
55 x 55cm