WHAT'S ON AT URBAN RETREAT

Calligraphy, praised as the highest form of art from the 8th century here and throughout the height of the Islamic civilizations, and by the Chinese emperors themselves, has of late been reviled it its current expression of Graffiti. This form of graphic imagery that has defaced/enhances buildings/derelict walls, has in most cases lost the content and meaning if the words but gained an energy and a visceral expression seldom achieved by the scribes of old.

My love of the written word in all of its manifestations from hieroglyphics to newsprint has led me to try and depict words and texts, meaningful to me, as visual statements, where the letters are not just symbols representing sounds but carry an iconographic baggage that emulate/resonate, in colour and form, the message of the words, set a scene in which the very letters combine to speak, sing or remain silent.

I do not claim to belong to the Hip Hop movement. My motivation is the use of Design to capture a mood, a feeling or an emotion. And I believe that the sound of words, spoken by the human voice, the ultimate musical instrument, is Music, so why should not their shape be related to Painting?