Calligraphy by Johan

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bserving my work as a whole, the first idea that comes to mind is a complexity of black and red, in a sort of visual duality, a game of oppositions between the letters of the alphabet, between red and black. This is the first observation, then observing closer, the identity of the red letter appears. It is the twin of another letter, it is dual in the text, it is red but also black, in accordance with the position that it takes in the word where it appears. It is voiced but also sometimes voiceless. A being with double life, double personality, double appearance. Thus, in my calligraphy work, the ink dresses in black the body of the letters in a positive action, one by one they arise and join to establish the image of a text, of a speech, to form a community of little beings and being thus set, this text lets appear within itself special beings in blood colour, red or carmine, denouncing its dual personality, making the spectator see where they meet. Voiced letters, with elegant designs, full of rhythm, impressive, sometimes sensual and present throughout the whole text but with a dual aspect… Like a parallel world.

Since MM03, I have been attempting through repetitive studies, sketches, attentive examinations, through the alphabets that I write by hand, or let's say through my calligraphy and through the comprehension of the evolution of writing in all ages, to understand the language and the sense of the signs which constitute the graphic representation of the letters, the transformations and different shapes of the alphabet in some languages.

Travelling in the past, in a natural way, and letting myself be led by the interest in the letters or signs, going forward, going deeper, progressing through studies, I saw myself going back in an unavoidable way to the roots of our ancestors in writing, the Phoenicians.

After studies, investigations, doubts, deductions, the most varied versions, I decided to create my own representation of the sign, the letter or character, in accordance with the form or space where these beings appear in my work. I distorted or adapted the alphabets I use, giving them a personal touch, making them my signature, "Johan" alphabets.

I have observed each sign of the alphabet (Occidental, Hebrew, Greek and Arabic, alphabets that I am deeply interested in knowing) and I have followed the movement of the strokes of each of them, the skeleton of the letter, the design in its entirety, the appearance, the mobility, the dress, the body, the importance, the hierarchy, the position, the degree of intensity, the strength, the weakness, the posture, the sound of each of them, when on their own and when they are combined, and above all the duality that some of these signs embody in accordance with the position that they occupy in the word and in the alphabets of which they are part and that they represent.

The signs or letters are beings which in isolation are at rest and if manipulated are active beings capable of influencing, making execute, create, and turn an action into being. To me, a sign, a letter, a character, a pictogram, are strengths which affect existence in all ways. Like a person, they have a character, their own personality and when grouped like a community, they can create a world.

I thus decided to make visible, through my calligraphy, the dualism in the use of colour, therefore I chose to represent them in black and red, and in the letters of the alphabets which I write in calligraphy, I chose for the occidental languages: the lower-case "s"; in Greek the "sigma"; in Hebrew: the "shin"; in Arabic: the "sin".

These letters or signs which I am talking about seem to me to concentrate a large quantity of sound in themselves and I decided to represent them in red at the beginning and in the middle and in black at the end of each word that I write in calligraphy and in which they are present.

To sum up, the concept I developed, in my calligraphy work, is a text written in black and the letter or sign that I mentioned above in each language of the texts I transcribe, written in red or carmine, highlighting in a visible way the dualism I have decided to represent. Each of the texts executed by myself in calligraphy, represents a community of beings, letters or signs, full of their own personality, working together, giving rhythm and beauty to the existence of the text which I am writing in calligraphy, and in the midst of this community, I am showing with my quill loaded with red or carmine ink, beings with a dual personality.

The dual character of the letters or signs that I chose to represent through my calligraphy work has a special character, peculiar, mystic and other interpretations… but I will not deal with this here since this implies another kind of treatise.