Jan Willem Deiman’s (1986) metal frames hang on the wall like three-dimensional drawings. These wall sculptures are based on the characters of the Phoenician script: ‘The first script that did not consist of figurative characters, but was based on the sounds of a human language: the birth of abstraction in writing. The systems that we humans invent in order to understand the world are the starting point of my work.’
Despite his fascination for language, the meaning of the characters does not play a role for Deiman. ‘What interests me is the visualized musicality. Within certain rules that I set for myself, such as the colour, which refers to ink or blueprints, and the fixed proportions of the framework, I take the liberty of playing with the forms of a particular sound.’
The enigmatic title of the series, borrowed from a declaration by Noam Chomsky, refers to the evolution of language. ‘It’s more like a snowflake, which is immediately a perfect form, than a giraffe’s neck, which evolved throughout the years into the shape it has now,’ says Deiman. It underscores the stratification of his minimalist visual idiom, which is preceded by lengthy research and a skilled construction process.