Nota; A means of recognition, mark, sign, stamp, impression. Tattooed. Is marked. Brand with. Bruise. Significant marks, written characters, signs. Letters, a critical mark, marginal note. Alphabetic writing, large letters. The letter. Memoranda, a brand, stamp, kind, quality. A mark, sign, token. A distinguishing mark, characteristic, note. By a marked peculiarity of dialect. With the note of the present time. (Charlton T. Lewis. An Elementary Latin Dictionary. New York, Cincinnati, and Chicago. American Book Company. 1890.)
Nota follows an ongoing investigation into annotation and gesture. Words are scrawled, lines draw out wards; note-taking-places solidify transient moments and become extensions of ourselves—containers of our memories. Looking upon these marks transports us back to such moments, or leaves us searching for a fragment of understanding. This installation explores this loss of understanding, the blurring of drawing and writing, and invites you to find your own language within.
Primarily expanding from drawing practices, my project focuses on processes of mark-making through drawing and print methods that reflect on trace; gesture; writing; and memory. Nota focuses on recycling and recontextualizing handwritten notes amassed between books and loose pages– contorting, rescaling, recreating; blurring their readability to the point of obfuscation. At some point, even with a simple scale difference, a word loses its role as a word and becomes simply a drawing or shape.
