Spelling Out

George Paton Gallery, Melbourne, 2023
Airspace Projects, Sydney, 2024

This exhibition explores the idea that language is magical by presenting a unique fusion of poetry and sculpture. It comprises a series of one-word sculpture-poems written in a new three-dimensional alphabet designed specifically to articulate these words, an alphabet in which each letter is projected into a sharp point, suggestive of spears, bones, or shards of light, and which also references the referential capacity of language itself. One work, ‘Circle’, must be walked around to be read, while the others, ‘Cross #1' and ‘Cross #2’, resist the act of reading by turning away from the viewer and presenting hostile spikes. Each sculpture-poem is derived from the palindromes reifier and deified, words that are one letter apart, yet potentially expressive of opposites fundamental to existence. Each letter was designed using architectural modelling programs, 3D-printed, and hand-cast in hydrostone. The works were inspired by the artist’s research into apotropaic spells and the history of concrete poetry.

‘Circle’, hydrostone, 100cm diameter
‘Cross 1 and 2’, hydrostone, 90 x 90 cm
‘Three of Five’, 2022, Lithograph, 43cm x 39cm 

Documentation: Astrid Mulder, Yiorgo Yiannopoulos, Louise Pilkington