Special Feature: Beyond the Wall - A Visual Writing Exhibit
“The Birth of Language”
The primordial mystery of David-Baptiste Chirot’s haunting visual works is perhaps associated with the effect of many distant places that he has lived, including Poland, Paris, Russia, Hanover, NH—not to mention the most distant of all, Milwaukee WI. Chirot says about his art that it is deeply connected with things and settings around him. “My work is guided by a profound faith in the Found, everywhere hidden in plain sight. To see with hands, feel with eyes, to hear forms & colors, to see sounds, words, music.” On his daily walks in anonymous urban settings, Chirot collects images doing rubbings with charcoal and paper—“rubBeings” as he terms them—that in their quasi-animate quasi-linguistic appearance provide an excellent source of visual writing. Chirot’s works reveal the depths of humanity linked with language, the mythic alterity of hidden streets and syntactical corners of civilization.
The primordial mystery of David-Baptiste Chirot’s haunting visual works is perhaps associated with the effect of many distant places that he has lived, including Poland, Paris, Russia, Hanover, NH—not to mention the most distant of all, Milwaukee WI. Chirot says about his art that it is deeply connected with things and settings around him. “My work is guided by a profound faith in the Found, everywhere hidden in plain sight. To see with hands, feel with eyes, to hear forms & colors, to see sounds, words, music.” On his daily walks in anonymous urban settings, Chirot collects images doing rubbings with charcoal and paper—“rubBeings” as he terms them—that in their quasi-animate quasi-linguistic appearance provide an excellent source of visual writing. Chirot’s works reveal the depths of humanity linked with language, the mythic alterity of hidden streets and syntactical corners of civilization.