Abdere Atramentum: Embracing the Language of Ink and Chance
Abdere Atramentum #3
Abdere Atramentum is a hand-painted abstract Ink on Film collection rooted in the space where intention gives way to discovery. Rather than beginning with a fixed image or outcome, each piece in the series emerges through rapid chemical reactions between ink, alcohol, and transparent film. The drying process is almost immediate and unforgiving—once the ink touches the surface, decisions become permanent, preserving a singular stroke.
The title Abdere Atramentum suggests both concealment and ink itself, reflecting the layered nature of the work. Forms reveal themselves slowly, often shifting depending on distance, angle, and light. At times the compositions resemble expansive landscapes or atmospheric horizons; people and creatures alike interacting with each other and other unworldly objects; sometimes they feel microscopic, evoking cellular structures or fractured surfaces. This duality is central to the collection, allowing the work to exist simultaneously as something vast and intimate.
Chance plays a critical role in the creation of each piece. The ink behaves according to its own chemistry, blooming, cracking, or pulling away from itself in unpredictable ways. Rather than resisting this behaviour, the process invites it. Control is present, but only through the hand-cut, dipped-crushed and burned tools guided by timing, movement, and restraint rather than force. Each work becomes a collaboration between artist and material, shaped as much by reaction as by decision.
Within Abdere Atramentum, the abstractions are intentionally open, designed to encourage viewers to bring their own experiences, memories, and emotions into the reading of the work. One person may see geography, another emotion, another motion frozen in time. The absence of narrative is not a void, but an invitation to create your own and connect with others.
This collection is also a meditation on impermanence. Because the ink dries within seconds, nothing can be revised or recreated. Every mark documents a fleeting interaction that will never occur in quite the same way again. What remains is evidence of that moment—captured, fixed, and preserved.
Abdere Atramentum celebrates the quiet beauty found when control loosens, and process takes the lead. It is an exploration of material truth, unpredictability, and the subtle complexity that emerges when art allows itself to happen rather than be forced.
