2 - sharjah

"The global language" - 12 new works on paper - created for the Sharjah exhibition -

Already on my first trips to India, Sri Lanka and Tunisia in 1980 I became fascinated by the different scriptures and the for me so exotic letters. This new universum of expression seemed to me (especially as an artist) much closer to reality than our latin alphabet which I felt being very abstract with its letters A, B, C, etc ..
The ornamental, floral writing of the singhalese, tamil, hindi and arabic languages (and others) was a wonderful discovery and it had a very important impact on my future work. Because of the fact that I could not understand the words in its meanings I looked at them like if somebody sees a piece of art with hidden symbols and mysterious signs. This might be the reason I noticed the fact that these scriptures are much nearer to nature and reality. I could still see the roots (pictures of things of the real world) they were coming from. This meant to me that these scriptures in some way are more global - and universally understandable.
In my work I am always trying to find the point where a pictural drawing transforms into a symbol or a letter. The "birth of language".....
I think this way of working has much to do with calligraphy where the artist individually transforms a writing. Therefore this process expresses a high level of tolerance and freedom to me.
On these 12 drawings which I called "The global language" I started with a circle which symbolizes the globe but also a dot. When filling the round area with my drawings in the way I mentioned above,  the small figures, signs and symbols - just by themself - expanded into space. They were automaticly driven by the hand of the calligrapher ....and by the centrifugal power of an expanding globe.  My dream is a writing where everybody understands each other.