conceptual writing (ink on paper | 100x70cm)

Hui Ye literary and proverbially creates an artwork out of nothing. The term “nothing” serves as the departure material for the application of a permutation system developed by the artist upon the individual letters of the word. Following an algorithm based on repetition and variation, Ye hand wrote on paper the letters N, O, T, H, I, N, and G in different directions and in the form of a grid. Each letter is overlapped by other letters, and the order of the letters seems random despite its strict system. The legibility of the characters increasingly dissipates; with each layer the letters densify and are successively transformed into images. In the end the sum of the symbols drawn in black ink on the paper produces a complete picture in which the act of writing is treated as a graphic gesture, where text mutates into image and repetition is used as a productive means (By artist and curater Franz Thalmair).

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