Judith Wright: Asemic Writing: Vibration
Judith Wright鈥檚 art concerns, in her words, 鈥榯he slippages of communication鈥�. Wright鈥檚 new works for Asemic Writing: Vibration on paper and linen can be seen as three trios and one duet that explore related sensibilities. First the trio of monochromatic silhouettes, second the trio of symbolic and diagrammatic paintings, third the trio of lyrical and avian forms in intense hues, and finally the duet of intimate exchange between two people. The connecting thread throughout these groupings is Judith鈥檚 recent use of asemic writing as an anamorphic or sideways gesture towards the possibility of communication.
Asemic writing literally has no semantic meaning, these are marks that allude to writing or characters yet settle in the 鈥榓lmost becoming鈥� of language, where meaning is left to the viewer to decide and, in turn, complete the work. The history of asemic writing is traced to the early ninth century Chinese calligraphers Zhang Xu and Huaisu and appears in Japanese calligraphy and poetry, through to active use by the twentieth century鈥檚 Man Ray, Cy Twombly and Max Ernst. The term was coined in 1997 by two visual poets, the Australian Tim Gaze and the American Jim Leftwich.
While visual references such as the South Asian tradition of diagrammatic and symbolic Tantric painting can be drawn, the visual references overwhelmingly refer to Wright鈥檚 own archival world of imagery that has found form through her paintings, artist books, installations, videos and installations spanning six decades. Wright draws more from literature and theatre than from other visual artists. Her early artist鈥檚 book Trace, 1998, quotes from the 10th writer century Izumi Shikibu, one of the most exquisite poets in Japanese literature. Shikibu鈥檚 poems assumed two modes: one served as a vehicle for self-reflection, the monologue poem; while the other served as a means of communication between two people and could be described as the dialogue or exchange poem. One might consider Wright鈥檚 works here as both a vehicle for reflection and as dialogue poems as they inhabit the fraught and fluid space of human and animal emotion, empathy and understanding.
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Judith Wright鈥檚 art concerns, in her words, 鈥榯he slippages of communication鈥�. Wright鈥檚 new works for Asemic Writing: Vibration on paper and linen can be seen as three trios and one duet that explore related sensibilities. First the trio of monochromatic silhouettes, second the trio of symbolic and diagrammatic paintings, third the trio of lyrical and avian forms in intense hues, and finally the duet of intimate exchange between two people. The connecting thread throughout these groupings is Judith鈥檚 recent use of asemic writing as an anamorphic or sideways gesture towards the possibility of communication.
Asemic writing literally has no semantic meaning, these are marks that allude to writing or characters yet settle in the 鈥榓lmost becoming鈥� of language, where meaning is left to the viewer to decide and, in turn, complete the work. The history of asemic writing is traced to the early ninth century Chinese calligraphers Zhang Xu and Huaisu and appears in Japanese calligraphy and poetry, through to active use by the twentieth century鈥檚 Man Ray, Cy Twombly and Max Ernst. The term was coined in 1997 by two visual poets, the Australian Tim Gaze and the American Jim Leftwich.
While visual references such as the South Asian tradition of diagrammatic and symbolic Tantric painting can be drawn, the visual references overwhelmingly refer to Wright鈥檚 own archival world of imagery that has found form through her paintings, artist books, installations, videos and installations spanning six decades. Wright draws more from literature and theatre than from other visual artists. Her early artist鈥檚 book Trace, 1998, quotes from the 10th writer century Izumi Shikibu, one of the most exquisite poets in Japanese literature. Shikibu鈥檚 poems assumed two modes: one served as a vehicle for self-reflection, the monologue poem; while the other served as a means of communication between two people and could be described as the dialogue or exchange poem. One might consider Wright鈥檚 works here as both a vehicle for reflection and as dialogue poems as they inhabit the fraught and fluid space of human and animal emotion, empathy and understanding.
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