Artist's statement

This collection of works is made out of burnt paper. Into the smoke-blackened surfaces of these pages I have transcribed a selection of texts, interspersed with my own thoughts and commentaries. In the use of burnt books and pages I want to refer to the many historical instances of books burning, and through this, to the power and complexity of our relationships to the written word. Books are powerfully symbolic objects, and written language seeks to make thoughts tangible. The burning of books destroys the object but not the intangible idea. The physical object acts as a bridge between the reader and the idea. Book burnings highlight the schismatic nature of text, which is vulnerable to destruction, and yet powerful enough to incite the will to destroy it.

We cannot assume that we have understood any text that we have read, whether we seek to destroy it or revere it. The works in this exhibition, while referencing the destructive impulse, seek to physically manifest my relationship to a variety of texts, and the way in which those texts are associated with one another in my experience of reading. I have transcribed many texts. This act is a way of understanding, reinterpreting, and reconstituting their possible meanings. Through transcription, we own our interpretation of the text, especially since we do not necessarily come to the authors intended meaning, in our reading of their words. Language, particularly that which is handwritten, is flexible, associative and personal. This is indicated by the unique qualities of an individuals handwriting.

This first became apparent to me in 2004, when I received a series of letters from a friend who was dying. Though the person is now deceased, her handwritten letters remain. In these letters, her handwriting oscillates between clarity and illegibility. I am fascinated by the gesture of the text, and all that it implies. These passages are a record of what is not explicitly stated, the marks on the page transcend their signified meaning. The gesture of the handwritten text communicates more than can be said by the words that are written. These implicit meanings are carried in the quality of the mark. Similarly, the author Harold Brodkey wrote of his own immanent death:

I am practicing making entries in my journal, to record my passage into nonexistence. This identity, this mind, this particular cast of speech, Is nearly over1.

Just as Brodkey identified this particular cast of speech as central to his identity, I wish to explore handwritten text as a manifestation of emotional and bodily rhythms. Handwriting implies the body and is a tangible trace of the writer. It is psychometric, in that it reflects the writers entwined psychological, emotional and physical states.

Macushla Robinson, July 2007

All artwork on this page is subject to individual copyright ownership