Colour, Calligraphy, Battle Maps, and Ballpoints
Welcome to your May edition of Signified
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Announcing the May exhibition at : six : shot : gallery
In Memoriam, Mira Lehr, 1934–2023
Mira Lehr on her ‘Ignited Works’
“This natural element of fire, often controlled and abused by man, is a major medium in my work and my interest in the environment has become a driving force. We seem to be living through a very tenuous cycle now in our history on this planet. Nobody knows what the future holds... Drawing with fuses and loose gunpowder on top of subtle hand drawing, I set the entire work ablaze, embracing the risk that such a gesture could destroy my entire painting…”
Continue reading and see the art at : six : shot : gallery
Recently published in Signifier:
The Deer’s Cry of Archibald Knox
Archibald Knox is best remembered as a silversmith, jeweller, designer of tableware, clocks, broaches, and decorative buckles. Although, it’s a love of calligraphy and hand-rendered typography that connects his entire career. He was a notable influence in the British Arts and Crafts movement of the late nineteenth-century, developing a distinctively British response to Art Nouveau…
The Simultaneous Colours of Sonia Delaunay
Sonia Delaunay was a colourful force of life moving between art and fashion throughout her long career influencing many artists and designers to this day. In 1913 she produced the first ‘simultaneous book’, using the poem by Blaise Cendrars titled La Prose du Transsibérien et de la Petite Jehanne de France. The layout of the book was designed in two continuous columns, the left side being a flowing illustration…
The Battle Map Landscapes of Lambert de Hondt
The Dutch referred to 1672 as the Rampjaar, or the ‘Disaster Year’. Conflicts erupted on multiple fronts. To the southwest the French declared the Franco-Dutch War, seeking to increase their political influence over the Spanish Netherlands. At the same time, England launched the Third Anglo-Dutch War with a naval blockade of the Dutch ports. The government of the Dutch Republic seemed incompetent, the military unprepared, and…
Magician of the Earth, Esther Mahlangu
Scouts toured all continents, taking pictures of art for the selection process, and a homestead in South Africa, colourfully decorated with bold geometric patterns, was among those chosen. When the organisers found Esther Mahlangu, the artist responsible, they asked her to come to France to create a piece for the exhibition in person. She said yes.…
What’s the Point of Having a Ball?
Using a pen to leave our mark is falling from favour and increasingly it’s the touch-screen and fingertip that are replacing paper and ink. But once upon a time, and not so long ago, cheap plastic ballpoints were everywhere. They’re still to be found aplenty in office stationery cupboards, school stores, hotel lobbies, and on shop counters. They’re certainly no longer the specialist piece of equipment or prestige item they used to be…
Popular Signifier (ICYMI)
Spotlight on one of our most popular or trending articles…
Cézanne and the Painted Point of View
Paul Cézanne is one of those ‘great artists’ that I never really appreciated until I understood him in the broader context of his contributions to painting in the formative years that preempted Modernism. On the surface, his works may not seem all that radical today, but it’s his treatment of the canvas, as a surface, that was such a breakthrough…
Abstractions: from the archives of Signifier
In this regular feature of our Signified Newsletter, we select a few choice articles from our archives linked by a monthly theme. Picking-up on our recent article on Sonia Delaunay’s ‘Simultaneous Colours’ (see above) we dive into the realm of inspired form…
Driven to Abstraction
Abstract is a word often misused when talking about art. Some critics doubt that truly abstract art can ever be produced through human agency and is therefore impossible! Basically, abstract art needs to be purely formal without any figurative reference. More precisely, abstract work should contain nothing that remains representational…
Paul Klee: Abstraction of Place
One could tell, from his sense of visual rhythm, that Paul Klee trained as a musician before enrolling at Munich’s Academy of Fine Art. This fusion of musical sensibilities and visual expression encouraged him to explore colour and line as compositional elements in much the same way as a musician uses notes, tempo, tone, and volume in compositions. This would later provide conceptual common ground with his fellow Blue Riders…
The Hole Story
The Pierced Form is a strange term for the lovely curves in many of the rounded sculptures which surround negative space, in the form of a hole, as developed in Barbara Hepworth’s transitional works. Yet it emphasises the revolutionary nature of her exploration of ‘space contained within form’ in this manner. For western art, it was a pioneering development…
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