Axel calatayud works with photography, employing a number of techniques that don't involve the use of a camera. Contravening the quality of reproducibility intrinsic to photography, calatayud´s photograms feature unique, enigmatic and abstract images, which do not exist prior to appearing on the paper, but instead stem from the action of chemical agents on the emulsified surface of a photosensitive medium.

In his research, the photogram dominated by asemic writing- another subject that calatayud has explored on various occasions- take on particular importance. These mysterious and undecipherable graphic signs, similar to ideograms, stand out with their well-defined white profiles against the black background of the exposed paper.

 

Asemic writing (2017) is part of a series produced by experimenting with cliché verre, one of the oldest techniques used for reproducing images before the advent of the camera proper; it consists of a combination of drawing and photography. The drawing is made on a transparent surface, such as glass, laid over a sheet of photosensitive paper. This is then exposed to the light transfer the image from the glass to the paper. Calatayud´s invented characters pass from being a shadow projected onto the transparent surface to writing made with light in the photogram.

 

 

– Sara De Chiara and Pauline Mack

'Writing by drawing when language seeks its other'

Edited by Andrea Bellini and Sarah lombardi'