Page 14 - Wax & Words

Basics One: Asemic Writing - why is it so fascinating?

“Asemic writing is a visual stimulus that makes one think, for however brief an amount of time, that one is looking at writing. Then, when you try
to read it, you can’t find any words. . .
Pareidolia is a term for the human tendency to see concrete pictures in ambiguous shapes. People see animals or faces in clouds, and so on. An
easier term would be pattern-completion. Because we have such a well-developed ability to perceive patterns, shapes such as inkblots or illegible
calligraphy can stimulate one’s mind to imagine what it thinks the missing details of the image might be.”
Tim Gaxe

Jasper Johns, Flag 1958

Cy Twombly, Poems to the Sea 1959 Jasper Johns, Gray Alphabet 1960
As an art major in college, two of the painters that most individually or layered atop one another, to address modes of perception
influenced my work were Jasper Johns and Cy Twombly. and knowledge.

In much of his work, Twombly fills his canvas with looping, These days, all cursive writing is in danger of becoming “asemic,” or at
energetic cursive “writing”. Scrawling gestural passages are least ureadable by people who have not been taught its graceful beauty.
violently crossed out with dark pencil and thick paint is scored with Practicing asemic writing gives us the discipline that good penmanship once
chaotic scratchings. did without having to worry about the influence of words in the content of
our artwork. It invites the viewer to try to decipher a message to which he or
I loved the idea of a “secret language,” a painterly code. Jasper she can bring personal meaning.
Johns repeatedly used letterforms, either depicted individually
Try it for yourself! See the video on the next page . . . . . . . ..

Wax & Words 14