The icon project
Published by on July 29th, 2009 3 Comments »
Typical, no sooner do I start to re-integrate increasingly creative projects into day-to-day life, they start popping up like frequent popping things.
I have an everlasting fascination with the way our minds recognise patterns, even in chaos. Without this we would not have art, writing, or see Jesus in pieces of toast. We strive to see order in chaos and our minds form recognisable shapes even in the most abstract patterns.
This first piece of art is something of a pilot – a proof of concept, if you will. It consists of 486 unique, abstract symbols, each drawn by hand using a hand-made bamboo pen and permanent ink, onto a sheet of A2 paper. The piece was created over several days, with only a few icons being drawn at each session.
What do they mean?
Each icon is an entirely random doodle, conceived at the moment of completing the previous one. There are repeating shapes and elements, some of which are deliberate, but others evolved and appeared as the work progressed and the need to find new shapes and patterns became an increasing challenge.
If you look at the piece for more than a second or two, you will begin to recognise some of the icons elements. In fact, your mind will crave that recognition, searching for shapes that resemble familiar objects or ideas with which you associate. But they are just random shapes, lines, dots on a sheet of paper.
That is what this and the subsequent pieces are all about.
But there’s another layer to this
My initial plan was to hammer out this first piece, work at it until it was complete. But after a few rows I realised I was beginning to repeat certain shapes, or at least had to fight the urge to do so.
In a flip-side to you looking at the icons searching for meaning, I found myself instinctively basing icons on the everyday thoughts skipping through my head. My mind was trying to inject meaning into what should be just random icons. Fascinating.
Hence my decision to draw them in brief bursts of 20-30. I avoided struggling with repetition and my mind did not drop into a daydreaming state to influence the icons. Still, some repeating elements only appear part way down the page, while others disappear after several rows.
…and another
I can almost tell each drawing session by the style of the icons. Though unencumbered by influences from stray thoughts, I could not avoid influence from my overall state of mind. Sometimes passive, sometimes stressed, sometimes frustrated, you get the picture.
Icons in each session seem to reflect that, on a very subtle level of course. When tense or frustrated, for example, I would take less care in loading the pen nib correctly with ink (one loading lasts but one icon), so lines tend to be thicker and flow into other lines due to the amount of ink being placed. Other, early morning icons tend to have a less certain hand with shapes that do not quite close or that break over the defined boundary.
What’s next?
I have a string of ideas along similar lines. From much larger pieces (same size icons), to sheets with just one icon, to sheets that do reflect actual ideas and object, to icons that are based on stories, books, songs.
So far this first piece has taken me on a very unexpected journey. What was to be simply a grid of random little shapes, became a surprisingly expressive process. I’m sure there are more surprises to come.
3 Responses to “The icon project”
This is fascinating – also inspiring!
I love icons, there is something about them so small and perfect.
I find the exact same thing happens when photographing for my abstracts.
It is like this is how our brains are hard wired.