VISUALETYMOLOGY
visualetymology is a long term project that I began in 2006. The work exists as prints, books, and a 25' long scroll print. I started this work in reaction to the phrase ‘art is a language’. After coming to the conclusion that this phrase is not only wrong but does art a disservice, I began to make an etymology of art, to prove the opinion incorrect. Art cannot be a language because language would not foll its function were it not for the rules and standards that it is ordered by.
Art habitually reneges such bracketing in favor of a total reinvention in terms of form, style, content and media. This work is made in the knowledge that the work cannot achieve its aim, and that to all intents and purposes, the notion of an etymologically driven art, one that distils gesture into audible sound, metaphorizing the transcription necessary to believe in the statement that begot the project. Its very name is a contradiction in terms.
visualetymology is essentially a drawing project. I wanted to use a process to capture marks that could exist as glyphs that would not communicate to the viewer that particular haptic sense that any kind of traditional drawing or drawing media would. I used a very simple digital camera, and waited for a full moon. I would use the camera as both drawing tool and ground, collapsing the normative process of drawing. I held the camera at arms length and made drawing gestures with the shutter open.
*Currently, there are 14 series or iterations of visualetymology. There are hundreds of pieces in each iteration, I have included a small portion of them in this slideshow. This page is documentation of the book. If you would like to see more of this series, please see this link: or contact me through this site.
Another iteration is included on this site, along with information about the book made through this series.
2006-ongoing
(printed 2008)
222 pages
