Frammenti dei Glifi / Fragments of the Glifs

Patinated glass-fibre
Chair
H 80 W 90 x D 100 cm
Stool/table
H40 W 80 x D 100 cm

Modular seating first exhibited by Gallery Fumi in the exhibition:
It’s Good to Be Home
Mayfair, London
2021

I was sitting on a fragment of a column in the Roman Forum, surrounded by broken blocks of carved text, the words incoherent and scattered; the letters in bits. In my dream, a thought of this work was born.

Many years ago, I studied the art of Roman lettering, and discovered how the letters were first painted onto stone, then carved at the optimum angle to capture shadows. As the concept for this work emerged, I realised that the letter punches I have in the studio for punching text on to metal; tiny objects filed into peaks, were like miniature mirrors of the letters carved in stone, and as objects, the punches felt more interesting than the letter-marks they made. With these ideas in mind, Frammenti dei Glifi took shape.