Burnt Parchment, Denis Brown, 1992

What happens when you burn vellum skin? You perceive the transformation of a flat sheet into a sculptural relief. Rigid lines of text free themselves into natural undulations.

Here my destructive impulse was a reaction against traditions, (religious as well as calligraphic traditions which then seemed to constrain, even while guiding me). I carefully crafted pages of biblical text in Insular styles, before subjecting them to ritual burnings. This destruction was more than self indulgence, and yielded new creative form and meaning. The title of the work below alludes to ideas of rebirth following a purging.

Phoenix, Burned vellum, with copper wires. Denis Brown, 1993

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